@Geoff Engel If you don't want to be a landlord but still want to be involved with investing you could be a private money lender for flips or in partnerships and bring the money to the deal.

To get things "shaking and my blood pumping again" lol as money is tight.

The same money could buy 1-2 full properties that would rent for more, depending on the market you choose. 

Or just sell it at a loss… I need some guidance here, I know very little about real estate investing other than I know I’ll be losing money after maintenance and paying a property manager.

Where do you find "local" hard money lenders?

They would be putting in some money and their service as sweat equity, and we would be putting up money and my wife’s services. 

But even to this day the money is always the winner not me.. thats how you raise significant capital ..

Quote from @Chris Pontello: Hi Chris,Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm still learning creative financing solutions, but paying them some money would be if I could take over the loan.

We will see.Good news....they haven't asked us for any more money....yet. 

That’s great advice Taz, I’m currently working on saving enough money to get started, house hacking is hard for me at the moment because I just bought a house 2 years ago, I would have to sell my house(which is in a great neighborhood great location) and use that money to fund the duplex which isn’t totally out of the question, I would like to keep the house if possible but also would like to get real estate investing more.