I would love to connect with anyone who already has a property there or in progress.

Connecting with others has greatly accelerated my progress and I'm confident it'll lead to more growth than building in isolation. 

In Progress Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I can tell you how we have made progress in this area - learning through trial and error. 

However, looking up each property on the tax assessor's and the tax collector's sites, contacting Code for violations or improvements and seeing the Path of Progress, plus doing basic analysis, showed me that I could narrow down the properties to Good, Better and Best leads.

Best of luck and keep us updated on your progress!

I am not an expert on your end of the MSA, but perhaps purchasing in the "not as good areas" would make sense if they are in the path of progress?

Had no luck, so I worked for a full time wholesaler and progressed my way to an acquisition manager, learning a lot along the way... eventually leaving to run my own operation, with a small team. 

She is currently setting up her website (still in progress, but have linked it below.  

It is still a work in progress, but I am very happy with my tenants in the front house and I am loving not having a primary housing expense outside of paying myself rent to cover Capital Expenditures.