Due to the relationship, we agreed on a 3% down payment and the IRS minimum interest rate for a family loan (in our case, 2.47%).

They are a long standing family owned company....VERY solid...great organization, excellent reputation.  

Your value comes from managing vendors and building relationships with these various vendors.

Which is why relationships are so important.

Instead of using a manager, simply look to use a handyman as a proxy and pay them hourly once a relationship is established.

I don’t have any personal relationships with any PM companies but know plenty of contractors.

During the time you are working toward the 2 year mark concentrate on improving your credit score, living frugally to save every penny and developing relationships with other investors.Choose your friends and associates based on them having money and being interested in real estate investing.

I think we would be interested and willing to have someone we paid a nominal fee each year just to be able to answer a call or a couple of emails.Maybe do an initial consultation and/ or an annual checkup and onboarding to get us set up properly in terms of entities etc. ie does it make sense to create an llc.maybe have an packet available to answer basic questions like dos and donts of fair housing, evictions, Collections, recent law changes,the setup and use of an llc, trusts, wills etcThat way we are initially doing things properly and have built a relationship before we have larger engagements or are paying thousands due to initial poor planning.

If you can't even find properties that just turn a profit at all then you might want to revisit how you are underwriting the property.As for getting the better properties, it is a matter of building relationships with the brokers.

Excellent job!