Now there are tertiary markets in the US that will be low value assets but not super high risk those are your smaller towns but your upside is severely limited.

If you do not qualify, you would then look into if you would qualify with renting your departing residence. 75% of the lease will be used to offset that departing residence mortgage. as you mentioned the timing of renting the place can absolutely be tricky so you would hope you do not have to do this.Finally, and I guess would be sorta of a trick, but we do bridge loans on occasion in this case IF you can qualify once you get the property rented at market value even if debt to income ratio is too high before it is rented.

I am an experienced investor and unexpectely find myself managing a duplex myself and wondering if there is a small landlord (aka inexpensive) simple solution for marketing, background checks and lease creation that markets on zillow? 

Is the Hanover market something that anyone knows much about regarding its future economic growth in relation to the rest of this central PA area.

Fort Worth is a great market to get started REI.

Often, I am not able to keep all of my ira funds invested in active loans so I would like to be able to keep the money that is not invested in loans in a liquid "money market" type of fund on a temporary basis.

Quote from @Robert Jones: @Kristi Kandel what market are you in? 

That would probably be a good market for something like this.

I have the option to buy a 1,300-sqft 3-bed, 1.5-bath house in South End neighborhood of Stamford, CT, from a family member before it goes on the market.

Are you looking into certain investment strategies to begin or certain markets?