I have a few months before my lease it up, and I've started kicking around the idea lately of trying to acquire some rental properties in the upcoming years, but have not decided yet. 

Ideally I would like to wholesale these.  

I deal with a lot of vendors in my day job and periodically get calls about their performance from groups they hire to evaluate their services. 

If you rewind a few years back many of these over levered self proclaimed kingpins like you see gloating daily here on BP while conditions are ideal were failing by the hour.

Ideally I would try to buy out the smaller parcels so that this becomes a non-issue and so that I can have some control over the future use of the homes/residents.

A local or semi-local mentor would be ideal but I'm open to someone not so local as well. 

He has mentioned before he ideally doesn't want to move but will do so if he can't handle the stairs anymore. 

,If you don't plan on living there forever, I would seriously try to find something as close to your ideal investment (without considering your living situation) to the extent that you are willing to put up with it.Generally, if you want higher cash flow, look at areas you would be less likely to want to live.

@Andrew Fingado Different strokes for different folks.

Coming from the Midwest, we had been hoping to find an old industrial building or warehouse ideally on a waterway, for easy conversion (5000+ sf base area, 20+ ft height or multiple floors, drive-up/drive-in access), but are clearly very late to the party.