We also met with a REALTOR with investment experience and have begun interacting with him to get familiar with the local market while building up our savings.

They actually create interactive learning scenarios for you, which I think is awesome.

I also have interacted with folks from Laurel who are investing up here in Harford county.

Hi David, I'm a Long & Foster real estate agent and fellow investor based out of South Jersey.

And the idea that you can just hand your property over to ANY PM and not have to interact is just a fantasy.I have seen first hand Investor totally screw themselves as being an investor landlord by doing exactly what you were saying.It also was very bad pre 08 when lending was so loose that people could buy these things and have no real cash reserves.. stuff happens many times just your cash flow is not enough to keep the property going and you need to dip into reserves. what I found when I ended up with hundreds of these homes is the owners had ran out of money and the PM's could not manage a home when they had no funding from the owner.I recall one personally... my borrower was behind.. so I drove over to  check on my collateral.  

You don't know who that entity has interacted with and a year or two down the road someone could come out of the woodwork and sue the entity based on something that happened when you didn't own it.For your own protection I would form a new LLC and just buy the asset that is the real property. 

As Dawn mentioned, we have a meetup at the end of every month where you can get from behind the screen and get face-to-face with some of the local people you interact with on this site.

Learn how to interact with people on their level. 

I use UpWork for "non-interactive" tasks like scouting CL and sending scripted emails out.

I agree with Ryan...foster broker relationships and be ready to make offers.