If they are unable/unwilling to provide you with a clear explanation, that's a red flag.Some of this could be innocent.

But perhaps also among geographic markets, operators, and perhaps classes of property.Funds have three primary disadvantages over single-asset syndications, however.  

Obviously a number of real estate agents and property manager(s) with experience in the areas (geographic, type of real estate, and strategy) you plan on investing but more specifically whom else? 

Since I run my own PM for my rental property business, and I have virtual systems set up there, it seems to me that I *could* do this and bypass the PM setup, but there's a huge caveat to that in that my long-term properties are all close to me geographically; if something goes wrong, I can pop over there no problem.

The other option is also good however as young investors I would start where your comfortable, accomplish that and then consider expanding geographically. 

I prepaid a year's worth of insurance which the company failed to account for and couldn't give me an explanation for months why I was being double charged for insurance purposes.

I think you are off to the right start in thinking about investing outside of your area and CT, at least from a geographical perspective, makes sense.

Just imagine the person you talked to giving a half-*** explanation of it all to the other person in the decision without you're ability to clarify things for them.

@Peterson JeudyA couple of things for your consideration:Why are you restricting yourself to the geographical area you are looking at?

Anytime I submit an offer for a client and we don't hear back/it's turned down with no explanation, I immediately bring in that Agent's broker to confirm that this was shown to the Seller and to provide a response on record to the offer.