The plan is to manage my own units and build a portfolio of managed properties.  

Her now deceased husband was running their portfolio, he passed 6 years ago and she's been working on getting rid of all their properties since.She sent me an older appraisal that got me started, shared the income & expense figures.

My strategy for my own investments has been using the BRRR strategy and I've built my personal real estate portfolio using this process. 

@Derek Askew Great question — you may want to look into a service that offers a nice portfolio of tools to make managing your own rental super easy (that includes tools to list your unit, screen tenants, create digital leases, collect rent online and manage maintenance requests).

Considering buying portfolios of a few single family rentals on loopnet.

As an expat living overseas, I have established a few LLCs as I start my investment rental portfolio.

What advice do you have for those just starting to build their portfolio?

Banks are usually the most difficult to work with in these situations and you have to have a relationship, some history doing deals with the bank, or perhaps in some cases a deal that is so good a portfolio lending bank would go for it. 

We also did a cash out refinance on this property when we first started expanding our portfolio a few years ago.

Now my commute is just 20 mins, our property taxes are negligible and now have the means start a real estate portfolio on the side.