Are you knowledgeable enough to feel comfortable negotiating your own deal, managing your own rehab, managing the property?

Maybe down the road, you will have enough comfort under your feet to negotiate against the other side yourself, but the point of hiring a qualified agent is to leverage their experience to benefit your purchase. 

Thanks Rich, I was planning on hitting up a local REIA group will check them out- thanks for the lead.I've skimped on the full details of my experience base, I also worked a summer in school with a commercial general contractor, that was early in adulthood and I knew nothing but learned so much.I'm very comfortable with my knowledge of design and construction, most importantly knowing that there is so much left to learn.I'm looking forward to working on projects where I am actually the client, designer builder and project manager, and then being a fair landlord is actually such a powerful motivator.I personally believe there is a service element to real estate investment if done a certain way, providing needed housing that is built to a standard really helps people.

Do your own homework, check reviews, get other referrals, and make sure you’re comfortable with the property manager’s reputation.

You have to be comfortable with the situation.

For me it comes down to what investment types I'm most comfortable with, the capital I have to invest with, and what percentage return I would need to realize the $10K+ in monthly income.

Ensure the rental demand is there and you are comfortable holding the property long-term.

Reach out to a bank you are comfortable with and just ask them how to proceed. 

Our ultimate goal is to receive more income and make sure we retire comfortably, but if feel guilty of robbing him from his education so that we can live more comfortably in the future.

We offered the seller 3 different options to choose from, we adjusted all three variables listed above so that each offer was different enough for the seller but we were still comfortable if they accepted.