It is a great place to really network and find folks you need for your team - professionals and jv partners - I want to address the last bit as I work for a loan brokering company.

We are not professional’s by any means.

., and I am wondering if I should or don't need to take a professional with me?

I realize that apart from browsing through these forums for answers, I should also build a virtual team of competent folks to get professional advice from - but because there seem to be a lot of categories of professional advice, I don't know the exact list of people I need to include in my team.

This may or may not be true depending on whether you are a real estate professional.

She will be transitioning full time into a "real estate professional" for tax purposes.

To add another twist to this, it seems that Real Estate Licensees get special consideration as rental activities including acquisition, sale, and management of those rental properties may be considered NON PASSIVE (active) due to the professional occupation. -- I am a real estate broker.

For the out of state, non professional newbie, turn key can be a far less risker proposition than finding and renovating a property remotely when they don't have to time, resources, experience and connections it takes to do it.

Keep in mind the market will cool, when it does you want to be as well positioned professionally as possible.

I am a stickler on professionalism to keep our business as investors (wholesalers, flippers, landlords, etc) having a good reputation or else we will end up where homeowners will run like we are the plague when they see us coming, which many already do.