Some of these properties are transitional housing that they are in the process of converting over to "regular" housing.

I know it won't be a perfect transition, and I'm okay with some bumps in the road along the way.

It was a relatively easy transition for me.

I currently work a full time job and I eventually want to slowly transition away from it.

It was a great experience for us which transitioned us from being very hands on with our residential rentals here locally, to building a team and a system and allowing us (forcing us really) to be hands off.  

How long do areas that are transitioning take to become a better area overall?

Sounds like you have a pretty good background to be able to transition into real estate.

Average rents are $300, but this is below market of $375-$425 Landlord is paying utilities but it seems they are trying to transition into tenants paying by the looks of the cash flow statement.

We are making the transition from simply collecting real estate without any clearly defined goal to intelligently investing in real estate to achieve a specific end.

She really doesn't want to sell her current house and then buy another as it would be difficult to find the right place and transition.