Personally CA scares me. 

https://www.parealtors.org/blog/pennsylvania-population-chan...Pennsylvania is the fifth largest state after California, New York, Texas and Florida. 

I live in California so buying investment property here is pretty much out of the question right now.

I got married and im moving back to CA.

thanks for your time and help rent to retirement works directly with build to rent developers like us around the country once they are framed up. you are buying properties pretty much at market value but with a hand holding. you can work directly with a builder or directly with them. they are just an intermediary. they take 5% on what we make as a builder but have a large list of investors and a systemized approach to selling new builds. if you want to get a better deal I'd recommend directly contacting builders and building it yourself. fly to the market. spend 2 days, tour new builds, get a feeling for how it's going. if your builder isn't building multiple at a time then I wouldn't recommend working with them. rent to retirement is a well oiled and well run machine. they've had their ups and downs with dozens of transactions in florida but modified their process. they are well known and established and transparent. if you have a more specific market and feel confident in your ability to vet deals try it out. happy to talk more my info is in my signature. we work directly with them to sell new builds and no organization is perfect but I have good things to say about them as a builder and potential build to rent developer that sells build to rent triplexes and single family homes through them to end buyers in California like the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego 

But I've yet to see anyone do that in today's market especially in California.

We want to purchase a property to begin building our rental portfolio but are unsure of the best approach.We live in Sonoma County, California, and I work in Healdsburg.

I would also think twice about selling if you're in CA.

In southern CA, even garage conversion ADU additions are typically costing more than the value added.  

Watch the old classic "Pacific Heights" and you will never want to be a LTR landlord, at least in California lol.