You can get started without any capital.Flipping you have more risks but the returns are also higher.I find that a lot of wholesalers have terribly bad deals because they have never flipped themselves.Imo, you learn a lot more flipping houses.But having said, wholesaling forces to get in front of people.

We finally evicted the messy tenant and the roach infestation was so bad we had to replace the carpets.I often doubted the complaints of some sensitive tenants till we treated a unit, my wife went in the next day to clean up the vacant unit a day later, and got pesticide poisoning.

An area is only bad to invest in if it doesn't fit your criteria.

That said, there are a LOT of these companies and not all of them are bad.

I have had this happen twice in 5 years.The biggest issues that are more common with poor PM's are bad tenant screening and lack of inspections.  

Hello, my realtor found a tenant for me who appeared to have high income and great  references. come to find out that all are falsified. she stated she worked for a government agency and that was false, reason I know is I found her on facebook and she is self employed - WITH BAD REVIEWS AND ONE OF THEM WANTS TO SERVE HER - YIKES,  I can also see who she used as references, which are her FACEBOOK FRIENDS -NOT HER EMPLOYER. 

My question is would it be a bad move to purchase a home and rent it out while we wait for the neighborhood to improve?

You can maybe get one in NE or SE DC or PG county but then your commute will be a disasterCondos are not bad but you will not get as much appreciation.

NJ should not be as bad as here in Denver or where you are in LA, but its still a process. 

Black pipe is not too bad, it's just the labor and knowledge to do it that really gets you.If you have the aptitude to do this, you can go for it.Option 2: Meter it yourself and manage the billing yourself ---> We looked into this but it just didn't sound like something we wanted to mess with and even with this, it would heavily depend on your existing configuation as far as the cost/feasibility.