But investing outside of your state has its own set of difficulties as well, such managing remotely and not being familiar with the specifics of the local market.Make a Plan for Property Management: If you decide to invest in rental properties, decide if you'll handle them yourself or by working with a management company.

Wanted to check if that is true and if it is just lender specific or are there any legal laws around it.Thanks

I think a more ambitious strategy would be to "flood the zone with value" - specifically, pick a few listings in the geography you are interested in that are being mismanaged and propose your plan to that owner just as an ice breaker.

I think looking to get face-time with someone who is experienced in this specific situation and market status would be really helpful to answer some internal questions and provide guidance and external motivation to make a decision and get moving. 

Splitting the parcel depends on the local government, so hard to say, but our understanding for this specifically is that it is relatively simple / not very costly.Whether we split the parcel or not is somewhat the reverse of "greater than the sum of its parts".

At this point I don't have an entity, but I was thinking of setting one up, specifically for the PM side of things if I could manage tax benefits that way. 

Owners mistakenly ASSUME all PMCs offer the exact SAME SERVICES and PERFORM those services EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, so price is the only differentiator.So, the first question they usually ask a PMC is about fees - instead of asking about services and HOW those services are executed.EXAMPLE: PMC states they will handle tenant screening – what does that specifically mean?

Be as detailed and specific as possible when mentioning your future plans, current operation/experience level, ongoing projects, etc.

You can always split utilities at your first place later, and the inflation of cost will be marginal.

Specifically, there's job growth (Intel, Honda, Amazon, Nationwide, etc) and the population is growing (unlike Cleveland or Cincy).