I have always preferred to stay in the areas I know and that are within a reasonable driving distance for me 90ish minutes from my home.

Some lenders are individual investors; some lenders are syndicates or have joined individual investors together to form a lending institution.

I do it myself and takes 20 to 30 minutes a month (did it yesterday for Dec), with about 7 of those minutes for 1 property in Blount County, TN which requires the form to be manually filled out, write a check, address an envelope, scan doc and check for my records and walk it to my mailbox.

Relatively small amounts of interest income ($1600+ per year) is the highest taxed form of income I have found if you have kids at home.After earning a few grand in interest, It takes away my child tax credits and gives me an effective tax rate of 70%.   

Also, I'm looking to form a power team in each of the states mentioned.

Generally speaking, with SFR or small multis, I just rely on the lease/rent roll (and some form of proof of payment; i.e. bank statements, deposit receipts, tax returns, etc.). 

On these very forums you hear countless stories of "I lost 5K and can't pay for me medical expenses".

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.

For me, Seattle is too pricey for me and, at least for now, the returns don't make sense.

There are many here on BP as well as many on Linkedin that you could reach out to and they all have forms to fill out for deal specific information.I think trying to walk into offices will not be best use of time.