Find the big players in Seattle on BP.Add the keywords "Seattle" and/or "Washington" to the BP keyword alerts.

If your not capable to correctly purchase a duplex, you really shouldn't be, that's the cold hard truth, getting over-leveraged in a property is making yourself a target for, and inviting, problems to happen.

Find the big players in Columbus on BP.Add the keywords "Columbus" and/or "Ohio" to the BP keyword alerts.

In addition, Seattle/King County is an absolutely booming job market with no signs of slowing down (first and foremost because it is THE job market for cloud computing expertise and increasingly becoming THE market for AI expertise as not only national players but international Juggernauts locate there...those two tech spaces are the future of everything for the foreseeable future).So my unscientific data point of one (two really, my highly educated wife agrees with me) tells me that NJ is going to flatline and maybe even decrease while you will gain absolutely zero benefit if you hope for that kind of market softening in Seattle Metro.

Just disenchanted with the design capabilities of architects these days.  

My goals are to be capable of living completely off of my real estate investments by the time I'm 31 and I won't settle for less!

I know I still haven't learned nearly all it's capable of.

It's all about understand and protect yourself from potential risks, a willingness and capability to do the right things and provide good housing, and have reasonable expectations (quit listening to the wholesalers pitching 25% ROI's in the hood.)Just an example...

She could certainly be the equitable owner and capable of negotiating a binding agreement.

Find a partner (identify local players; REI groups; BP) who will expect something of you.