I am also in the New Haven area and just became engaged with some meetup groups in the central CT area.   

The upside to making this shift in my opinion is again the experience in marketing, engaging with customers(buyers/sellers), and surrounding myself with other like minded people.The downside is, at a starting position in a marketing department, I'd be lucky to earn half(or maybe even less than half) of my current income!

You can invest passively alongside a syndication or your own multi-family deal.

I recommend you read partnership/operating templates online to get familiar with them, then engage a business attorney and tax professional to help dial everything in.

Taxes are part of the rent to live here, a city that offers a lot of jobs and might as well call them well-paying jobs.I sell houses every day, and due to universities and hospitals in Downtown alongside all these above-mentioned companies, I see a huge stream of incoming people, and all making a lot of money.When I buy houses, my focus is on the cash flow.

You can flip properties, if you engage in this activity regularly, your profits will be subject to UBIT (Unrelated Business Income Tax), because flipping is considered engaging in an active business and that is taxable. 

Among these programs one truly stands apart from the rest; the Real Estate Investor Business Line of Credit which is specifically designed for real estate investors who engage in both fix & flip and fix & hold.

Better is 2 bed units as if people get engaged, married, have a room mate, have kids,etc. they need more space.

Property managers aren't miracle workers, and you will have to work along side them sometimes to approve items they may tell you your property needs in terms of renovation and maintenance, and if you see you are having high vacancy rates, you may need to work with them to find out what is causing that, then work together for a plan to increasing occupancy. 

Hi Johnny,I have not engaged any of these folks myself but in my research these are the folks I identified as property managers in Gastonia.