I am mainly interested in Buy&hold strategy with Single family and up to quadplexes.

Plenty of hurdles to be aware of.

One of my main goals is to have units and tenants that my wife can manage and safely collect rent or do the inspections on.

I am new to real estate and looking to invest out of my main state of Kentucky.  

There are two main items you have to do. 

It is not particularly close to the main hospital or the university.I do think of it as a pretty stable area that is relatively safe for an investment.

The main reason you'll get the home back invariably in worse shape is you are giving this house to an extremely (extremely) week family.   

Deals on the MLS are few and far between, the main reason I've shifted my marketing focus to finding sellers, depending on the property for whether it's an MLS listing lead or a property to present to my buyers as a pocket listing. 

Getting people to 180 their norms and thinking by explaining the benefits is not something they are going to reverse without major mental hurdles to jump .

So if I start with a duplex or a quad as my first property my goal would be to have a net cash flow of $500I intend to use the "BRRRR" (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat) method but have never used this strategy before so I still have a lot to learn If I only close on two deals starting in 2019 then I will need to find another 20 deals in the remaining four years (2020-2024) that also meet this criteriaBeyond 2024 I plan to continue to scale even more over the next 3-5 years with an end goal of financial independence by ~2030 (meaning that I will not work a "day job" but will passively manage my real estate portfolio)Biggest hurdle: I'm going to be living outside of the US for the next 3 years and will (likely) not be able to physically see any properties that I plan to purchase.