I want to start smart and scale up as I learn the ropes, but I’m personally struggling to narrow down which area to focus on.If you’ve done this before, what advice would you give someone like me?

Unless you revise your plan and ensure that your personal use is under 10% of the rental use.

Meet in person.

Real estate is a wealthy persons game. 

My personal preference for a buy and hold would be an already established area (or an area that's still gentrifying, but has already seen significant progress). 

Personally, I wouldn't open up a home that isn't in good repair, from a liability standpoint if nothing else.

@Marc Zak Using an LLC for each property provides strong liability protection by isolating risks to individual assets, with income and expenses flowing through to your personal taxes on Schedule E.

A landlord policy can be a commercial policy or a personal lines policy.It's the same as asking if you should buy a single family rental or a 1 unit building.Focus on the coverages and disregard the name of the policy.

The issue was a person sold their home subject 2 and the person who bought it stopped paying.

The standard process is already long enough, add on the scope of things and that's some significant time.