They won't be local to you but with Skype and scanners these days, it is more important you get an expert in real estate and someone you can call day or night with questions and who will work with you to create the best tax benefit for your individual situation.  

Real estate offers countless benefits that are practically at your finger tips.

What benefit do you get from wasting yours?

Well the ultimate goal is to wholesale enough properties to fund a deal where I can own multiple rental properties, the issue is gaining the capital to buy the rental property.

It benefits you to keep them both on lease.

You'd do the work, gain experience and avoid some common pitfalls.

Overall we have a partnership where we all benefit when good decisions are made.A defaulted note is a note where the borrower has violated the loan terms.  

Short term, I am looking to get my feet wet, I want to learn as much as I can about rental properties, flipping, and buy and hold to gain enough information to be comfortable with my first deal.Long term, I hope to acquire enough rental property to produce enough passive income that would allow me to spend more time with my wife and newborn baby girl.I would like to thank everyone in advance for your knowledge and time in working with me.

Then, I guess I would try to talk to tenants and find out any pains they may have and then upon solving these problems and gaining some good will, get in and get new leases signed with some upward rent movement.

There are benefits to going both directions.