Maybe you get PM in the beginning and meet with them quarterly to learn the ins and outs, and gradually take over management yourself of the easy units and let them manage the difficult units until you're an expert.

I explored this and quickly realized the capital required and the TIME required made the risk out weight the benefit.  

We screen tenants carefully and have had great experiences with 19 out of 20, but once we did have someone whose issues gradually worsened to the point that she was talking about buying a gun and eventually making threats toward us.

My inspector is worth his weight in gold and he’s got a way better eye for this stuff than I do.

An existing, paying, non-complaining tenant is worth their weight in gold.

I am willing to pull my weight in risk, loans, paperwork, and deal analysis. 

Agents with this type of expertise are worth their weight in gold to an investor--especially when the investor is relatively new and inexperienced.

There are other approaches that could be considered, such as a deferred sales trust, although that ties one's money up in a non-liquid fashion, capital gains are recognized gradually over time, and the plan has some ongoing costs and hassles. 

if traditional, you would need to have income to support two mortgages; if non traditional 10%-25% down payment depending on the program/your personal situation2) Familiarize yourself with landlord/tenant laws of your state, consult with attorney, weight pros and cons of keeping your home as investment, evaluate risks associating with tenants not paying rents; put together a maintenance crew/team or look into hiring property managers..3) If you were to sell and then buy in NJ - in the ideal world where and what kind of property you would want to purchase?

The compression of inventory over the last 10 years has gradually restricted the discounts on the buying side.