He mentioned to me that reputation management and generating genuine reviews are very essential more than SEO and other marketing efforts online.

So essentially tenants are fairly decent.

A local expert will surely be able to point you in the right direction with respect to target area, property type, and price-point.To piggy-back off of what @Christopher Hunter shared, I think speaking with a lender is essential.

It is essentially vacant because he retired and other renters left as it went up for sale. 

And realized the because we had no down payment, it was essentially a free house.

I’d have to have his current lender “approve” me, but they told me that doing this would essentially just remove my dads name off the loan and my name would go on it.

If you're going to look at Newark there's a new program through the city called "Live Local" https://www.newark-alliance.org/livelocal/ and essentially they're giving out grants of $2,500 to $4,000 if you're renting and up to $7,000 for "approved exterior improvements". 

It's because these places offer the best ROI, rent to price, cap rate (essentially high yields) .

I might not be clearly asking my question, could I essentially opt out of representing myself?

Essentially, the bank makes 1 loan and puts both properties as collateral.