Best of luck with your investment career 

While yes, they should make other arrangements, why make it more difficult arbitrarily?  

This will definitely get my real estate career started off on the right foot 

In the past I have usually held only one client at a time, in 2019 it is my hope to grow and take on multiple clients in order to make this side job a career.

There are many investors who have experienced challenges with 3rd party management (and unapproved concessions are unacceptable).Now the tough love part...it's going to be difficult to make a profit with a $500-600/mth rental purchased for $55K (and impossible with 3rd party management...have to factor in extra vacancy and higher repair cost). 

It actually got very difficult to find willing employees to work in a massive city that would not allow the grand majority of them to live within its City limits.

You are correct the suburbs suppport a higher rent but in Toledo it is definitely more difficult.

I'm making this my year to become educated enough to be able to start and excel in my real estate career and maybe even buy my first property.

If you had multiple renovations to make at once that would be a larger expense and difficult to save up for then a HELOC might make sense.

In our area, it is difficult to find well qualified market tenant that can pay 1500+ rent reliably and be stable for a few years.