The cost of living is extremely low compared to other cities and you can still many many positive cash flowing and 1% deals here.

The best thing for you to do is find an assumable loan from someone with a super low interest rate since VA loans are one of the few loans you can assume. 

HI Julie,You can always start off by house hacking meaning you live in one UNIT or ROOM and renting out the other vacant units/rooms to offset your monthly mortgage payment.There are several ways to run and make sure you are maximizing your rental income while keeping your living expense as low as possible.

I will be using retirement funds and for that reason in order to defer taxes.

But with the array of services and fee structures current property management companies offer, it is entirely possible to pay an extremely low management fee and still be “fee-ed” to death as both an investor—and now even as a resident.Over the past 15 years, the amount of managers and fee structure variance in our industry has been incredible.

For example I work with CA investors that buy in Reno, Nevada because it's close to CA, low property taxes, and job growth.

They could pass a new resolution not to allow rentals, or no pets in rentals, or no section 8 in rentals, or raise the HOA dues insanely high for a year until you sell it to fund better reserves for themselves at your expense. 

Secondly, I have funds to invest and am hoping to learn as much as I can about investing and maybe team up with others on a deal.

My friend has advised me to get gap funding for the down payment but Im unsure how that plays into the hard money lender?

Currently, you could say we are both low-income; I'm a barista and he works in sales.