Training board member's is just not in my niche.If you have a bent toward education or someone on your team, you will be an invaluable part of every association you manage.  

An LLC does not provide much legal protection, it acts as a legal firewall to separate assets.

welcome @Cam Caraher and congrats on joining BP, this place is the start for many, sure was for me longer ago than I care to admit.I'm not personally in your market, although was born in dorchester and grew up in NH, but this is a great place to meet locals.If you have not already a great starting point is the Meetups posted here, just search for your area and see if any meetups are happening. 

For example, a few years back, I was working with an investor who wanted to break into the Phoenix market - a solid choice, by the way, because of the rental yields—and we ended up uncovering an off-market duplex that wasn't even on her radar.

Does anyone know a good financial adviser/planner that I can use in the area?

A lot of end buyers have realtors on a drip campaign for off market deals as well. 

A 3 bedroom house with two roommates would bring in around $1,400/month, and a home in the high $200k's with 3-5% down would have a mortgage pmt around $2k/month.

This will affect how you market a lot.One piece of advice on what you wrote.

Quote from @Jessica Neely: There are a lot of different techniques.

Do you have a defined market area?