My wife and I have a regular W2 job so any cashflow made would just stay in the properties bank account for repairs and maintenance.  

Pretty much like everyone else has mentioned, property management is a hard job.

2) Can you "keep your day job" while you get started?

As a former bike mechanic I know renting bikes for a profit is a full time job because of the repairs.

Have you searched to see if the name you want is taken?

Specifically, there's job growth (Intel, Honda, Amazon, Nationwide, etc) and the population is growing (unlike Cleveland or Cincy).

Furnished Finder - General MTR DataFurnished Finder Traveler Search - manual way to see the competitionFurnished Finder Budget Tool - Good overview of market.

One of our clients just closed on HELOC, and we're working on his investment property search now.

We told her to clean it up last year, and she did a decent job.

@Savannah WalbertIf you plan to invest out of state, go where you have a competitive advantage.I invest in Jacksonville FL because my old job would fly me there multiple times a year so I learned the city over time.