Columbus in particular has seen significant growth, driven in part by tech giants such as Intel ($20 billion), Meta, Amazon, and Google establishing warehouses and data centers in the area.

@Taylor Dasch I just bought my 1st rental and in process renting it out.

I am looking for a land to purchase and go thru the process of building townhomes/SFH  .

If you are interested in being the lender for investors BP has a book Lend to Live - that talks about this process and how to do it.

The main lesson I learned through this process was I attempted to turn the home into a full short term rental and was unsuccessful because I had not done proper research.

This allows you to focus on TLC/Rehab deals where you can renovate and profit on the ARV to again pull cash out and repat the REI purchase process.

Not a huge a mount of cash flow and since only 1 property, want to minimize the fees as much as possible but also setup a process that can grow with me.  

Yes, for a few reasons.1) local to you - you would most likely have an edge to start right where you are, since you may have better access to data and physically can go to the properties and/or meet investors in person, if need be, etc. 2) since the #'s are typically larger here (SoCal) you have the potential to make larger $'s !

So, I recommend getting a low cost accounting software solution, so that you can learn how to categorize transactions while you have some time to learn that and, as you grow, you'll build data to help analyze your business. 

If her spouse didn't file returns she must do so on her own.Respectfully but importantly, it sounds as though you spent too much time in your tenant's life and are now looking to "take care of her" the way her spouse once did and in the process trigger a bunch of taxes and frustration for yourself - trying to sort out a tenant's circumstances.