My husband and I would love to take over their mortgage payment to take over this burden for them, while they still live comfortably in the home.

You have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain by pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.Good luck!

I'm somewhat new to real estate investing myself in the sense that i have not yet done my first deal but because of all the knowledge i have gained from BP, blogs, podcasts and articles I know a lot more than I expected myself to know at this point.I had similar questions like the ones you listed because although i've lived on land the whole time, i never had the need to ask for the cost of lawn care, flood insurance, garbage removal etc.I learned that the water, sewage and garbage bill in my area was packaged together and i learned that here on Bigger Pockets, from the comfort of my computer.Of course, you'd be encouraged to get out and start looking at homes in person but Bigger Pockets definitely helps you get setup for all you want to accomplish in Real Estate!

Glad I can help, @Todd Rasmussen is not wrong either. just depends on what your comfortable with and what you can manage. 

At the end of the day you should close when you feel comfortable closing.

We are working with tenants on a case-by-case basis.We are comfortable securing new tenants if needed, if that were to come to fruition.

You do the work, the whole sweat equity thing, or at least, you do the part that you feel comfortable doing and hire out the rest.  

If the repairs are things you do all the time and are comfortable with then thats great but if this is the first time you are working on a house I'd build a hefty cushion into your budget for errors and mess-ups.- If you are using a contractor, consider it your job to manage them, document everything in great detail that you want done and expect, and hold them accountable. 

Although I live in Brooklyn, NY, I feel more comfortable looking for deals in Kansas City, MO and the surrounding area since that’s where I’m from, my cousin will be my contractor, I feel the deals will be more reasonably priced and I just feel that I’ll have more success finding the other pieces of putting a team together.

I'd never lived in my current market until 2018 but feel very comfortable picking a rent now that I've been watching similar homes for nearly two years.If you change your mind on property management, I could also give you a recommendation of a PM company in Pensacola i've been very happy with since 2010.