I eventually settled on Atlanta for the reasons previously mentioned and also because I found property managers/agents at Excalibur Homes to be extremely responsive and helpful.I did a lot of searching for homes, I made my own excel sheet with formulas to plug in numbers on properties.

Seriously extremely helpful!

I think it might make more sense for me to live in the house to eliminate holding costs and do some of the rehab myself (which I know nothing about).My goal is to make $2000 per month of passive income from rentals, heck even $800 would be a life changing amount, but my current life situation makes it extremely difficult for me to save money and leaves me with little to spend, thus I can only afford maybe a $40k mortgage.It's really difficult to see where I can fit into this, maybe I'm just fooling myself and I cannot enter real estate?

Account Closed As for the website, I guess its extremely emphasized haha. 

Not on the landlord insurance, but they've been extremely easy to work with on the other side of it with their renters insurance.

That trend is continuing and even though the population is 1200 as of the last census, houses continue being built and anything that's new is selling extremely fast.

Any advice greatly appreciatedHi Jaime,Unfortunately it is going to be extremely difficult to get started in Tremont or Gordon Square (the true Gordon Square area, not the outskirts) with only 20k. 

With the time change between Virginia and Hawaii, managing a property will be extremely difficult and may cost you money in the long term with tenants, etc.....This is not the same as managing long term between Virginia and Cleveland with a one hour time change.My opinion of course.  

Brokerage if you have 6 months of reserves can be extremely rewarding.

I negotiate really well when buying, getting the best rates from lenders then contractors,  selling myself and my business to investors, and finally "selling" my properties to renters for extremely high rates.