Is the only place where this works some sort of a private loan with a local private investor who understands your situation?

Start by reading the Ultimate Real Estate Investing Guide: https://www.biggerpockets.com/guides/ultimate-real-estate-investing-guide/introduction2.

This house HAS A CURRENT lead safe certificate issued by the Toledo Health Department.

This means that there are properties in very lucrative areas at a great price but, no buyers. 

Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.The City of Detroit has 183 Neighborhoods we’ve analyzed.PM us if you’d like to discuss this logical approach in greater detail!

We're all in this to build something meaningful, and I'd love to hear more about what you're working on in Norfolk!

Is this the correct first step?

Hey, I recently bought my first rental property in Polk County it doesn’t cash flow enough for me to have a property manager so I would have to manage this myself for the time being, however in about 6 months I would want to get a HELOC on the property and use that as a down payment on maybe a multi family and then rinse and repeat, I was wondering if this sounds reasonable or would I have to do something else thank you so much 

Can K1 losses from this LP only deal be also taken to offset W2 income?

As others have pointed out the technology that exists in the space makes communication quite frankly one of the easiest parts of the business at this time and tenants as well as clients have grown accustomed to having quick and efficient communication options at their disposal.