But I had a very math and finance oriented mind from a young age.

Understandable from their perspective, but definitely leaves a gap in the market for something like Personal Capital but oriented around P2P/crowdfunding/alternative investing.

Out of curiousity, does Justin Ford talk about the dangers of choking on hotdogs and peanuts, tripping over area rugs and extension cords, or falling off a chair while trying to reach the mixing bowl on the upper shelf?

If it's simple, go solo.My experience dealing with municipalities:  they are very process oriented. 

The rental cycle here is very much oriented around the academic year, with most start dates in July and August, so if you can avoid that cycle you might find some opportunities.If you want Wake County, I would look at Apex, Morrisville and Cary, all suburbs on the Chapel Hill side of Raleigh.

I invest in multi-unit property without having a local presence, so essentially, I use data/numbers to made buying decisions for my rental portfolio.I've been using city-data.com, but I'm curious as to whether anyone can suggest a better platform to understand job growth, population growth trends, demographic data, landlord-oriented legistlation, median rents etc. per city or per state?

It's also in a region of South Philly that's quite rugged.

Perhaps you might continue with the buying process while you are still in your local area, where you can interview investment-oriented Realtors, property managers, mortgage providers, title agents and property managers.

All of these homes are beautiful, in family oriented neighborhoods.

If you want to warm up a living room the tenants can get a great area rug designer on sale for cheap like 99 dollars and throw it down.Make sure with the tiles they are not the slippery kind with no grit to them.Those kinds can get wet and make people slip and fall.Much better to spend about 6 cents more a sq ft and get the cheap kind but they have the grip coating and not the ultra smooth slippery surface.