I have been heavily educating myself and have now started down my road to Financial Freedom.

It also makes it easy to educate tenants or Landlords, pick up new rentals, etc.3.

I also realize, or have been told, that everything is negotiable so while I would prefer to work for #1 as the owner/managing broker is like family, they are a national company with better lead-generating systems, education, etc., the required monthly fees starting out are intimidating.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone that will tell you that having an education is a waste of time. 

This was before BP and my agent was not much help either, so I read every book I could find, took seminars and enrolled in a one year course with Rich Dad Education, which was not the worst thing, at least it tought me a lot of theory.I was still very sceptical if real estate investing would actually work - if it's so great why is not everyone doing it?

Welcome to the site @Mike Loughryif you want to invest in Cleveland the 1st thing you should do is educate yourself on the different types of neighborhoods we have here.

get as much education as you can about the game, networking is IMPORTANT so dont leave that part out attent local meetups and rei events (the free ones ).

Since you have already identified your niche, the best bet would be to 1) educate yourself via books and podacts2) network with like-minded investors via REI clubs and events.

Given that student loan interest rates in most cases exceed returns from the average rental property in todays market and given that student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy and that the govt can garnish tax returns to reclaim and that they very negatively affect your borrowing capability I'd pay those rascals off as fast as I could.

Zillow shows value today at $579k, which is likely on the high side.