I bought my third property in another state because 1) I wanted to force myself to learn how to prepare a property for rent without spending a bunch of my own time working on it and 2) I couldn't find deals in my market.The latter was more due to inexperience.

Who is better prepared to become real estate investor - an experienced Property Manager OR an experienced Commercial Real Estate Broker?

Its Home Depot, and they would be willing to give you a credit card with a big line of credit.

I don't have a lot of money saved up and I currently have poor credit 580-600, but I'm interested and dedicating myself to taking the first steps of financial independence by learning the ins and outs of the real estate industry.

During this threat I set up several LLCs to quickly move the properties into and was prepared to do equity stripping through another LLC.  

Talk to several local/regional banks/credit unions.

If you knock $$ off the rent, many tenants will start to find other stuff to try and get "credit" on the rent and it will escalate.....

6% is a little high....but without anyone knowing your debt to income ratio, your credit score, whether it is a multi or single, what your ltv on the loan is, its impossible to say. 25% down with a low dti and high credit score is going to be about 5.5% right now. 

You do have to be prepared to buy a replacement property though to satisfy 1031 requirements.

But not only that, if you don't meet those income and credit requirements, they still won't refi you out.