Is your wife's credit score low just because of lack of history or are there unpaid/late items, charge offs, things in collections?

But I still felt we were in an interesting situation where our lack of desire/drive to do these projects ourselves was going to make it so we would one day have to scramble to hire and pay for the projects anyway when the opportunity/time came to move.

You can see below a comparative sheet I used to bring them to an apple-to-apple comparison when I was looking for something like this 2 years ago.4.

I am not sure if it's my search, the area, my lack of knowledge, or some other variable.

Please don't let/use your obvious insecurities and lack of confidence to persuade another individual from trying something that may very change their life.

Red flags might be things like signing a 12 month contract with them with payment penalties to break out, a litany of fees for odds and ends that's clearly designed to make you pay more, high costs to lease or turnover a unit, lack of transparency with maintenance orders/costs etc. 

I want to start investing out of state but I'm lacking capital.

I would love to get started earlier, however, I lack the finances to do so at the moment and so I am saving up for that first downpayment.I would love to get to know and connect with people in the Tampa Bay area, both new and seasoned investors, who don't mind sharing their experiences with investing and getting started on this path.

Tellus: My current solution that lacks web so I have to do everything on a mobile app.

There are programs that will only look at the rent the property can generate vs the total payment and nothing else so your lack of W-2 does not matter.