I know not everyone's a fan of him, but Dave Ramsey says, "The only ship that doesn't sail is a PARTNERship

Amazingly, for what I thought was just ships passing in the night, we're still hitched but living apart.

IL happens to contain Chicago as well as many major INTL shipping routes.

Not running the "ship". 

I have been interested in real estate investing (specifically flipping and rentals) for about 10 years now, but never knew where to begin and where to find any info to get the ship moving.

I opened an account in Florida while I was working on cruise ships in 2001 or so.

Materials and rehabbing costs a little more and may take longer there, you know all has to be shipped in...Do you atleast have a water view from the house?

This method is called "drop shipping" where you never own the actual inventory and you are just the middle man. 

I guess if you're in an A-class area, the fridge is a MAYBE, but otherwise as a tenant I would think it was unreasonable to dock the security deposit for that.

@Mark Vivanco for property management we off a tenant Benicia package that you don’t even pay for the tenant does it covers the owner in damage to the property, pet damage and many other things along with this in the package we drop ship air filters quarterly to educate tenants to take care of the your AC.