German Village and Downtown Columbus because they are near where I work and live so I can self manage them.

It also helps you build the intuition on how much you can offer.

For example, if you've got a 65k rehab budget and can complete 10k of the rehab with you own funds, then you'd start with the 10k of work.

At the same time, I would speak/interview 3-5 agents and explain what you're looking for in your properties to see if they can keep an eye out for your ideal project.

If you can, check out VA loans/FHA Loans/ Other govt loans—see if you’re eligible - leverage!

Once you know you can get a loan, then it's time to start hitting the streets and making it real.  

If you are with a cloud brokerage like eXp or Real, you can just move and stay under their umbrella with a new state broker after you complete whatever Illinois needs for reciprocity.If they don't have a TC team, you will need to complete and upload all of the paperwork, but they should have compliance videos for you to do.

California I believe can make it happen but the capital needed and rental laws make things a little more challenging

I can SPEAK with someone on the other end (like a vendor) with sound - but this live interaction is NOT ABLE TO BE RECORDED. 

While I realize that if a person really wants to find out who owns the LLC, they ultimately can with some personal effort or potentially the courts, I didn’t want people to be able to easily look up that information online (ie a simple Google search).