I'm not sure of your education background/skill set, but property managers are involved with the day-to-day operations of the property that can be valuable. 

I am not at all ruling out property managers who are not involved with sales.

Our company prides ourselves on being highly educated, moral, and creating a win-win for all parties involved.  

We're very involved in Chicago.  

I don't have tons of money for investing so I've been researching ways to get started that involve the least amount of capital.  

My mother had a health crisis and I became involved in making decisions on her investment as a result.

Here are my thoughts:-can't be too close to the ocean, sea level is rising rapidly-Ideally it'd be nearby (I live in Virginia) so somewhere on the east coast that I could drive back and forth to-Once I graduate, I was going to move to TX or NV and get involved in real estate there.

This is something you should address with your lender asap as this issue causes many HUD deals involving loans to fall apart

This lets us compare what we are doing to how she does things, but still keeps us involved.  

There are a number of us BP members pretty close to you that get together monthly to discuss a number of things involved in REI.