I sold insurance door-to-door in lowell 2008-2010 and did extremely well.

Which is not that great, but if you're going to park it at least maximize returns. parking in a big 4 bank earning .05% is not a good decision.

Securities rating companies providing information that was "not meant to used to make investment decisions". 

If you are going to invest out of state for your first deal, you might as well invest in sure stock tips.  

We can also understand a div stock will not need a roof or have any ongoing turnover costs, vacancies, evictions, vandalism, code violations, insurance claims, sewer lines, landscaping blah, blah blah.Fortunately we can compare 5 years div stocks to 5 years random sfr returns and your friends blog conclusions are not debatable.

I am making that decision because I don't want an old duplex that I would possibly require repairs.

You are not trying to draft an agreement, simply communicating to your attorney what you have agreed on.Submit to your attorney, he/she will come up with further points that need discussion/decisionsDiscuss again, record your decisions and resubmit to attorneyRepeat until the attorney has drafted an operating agreement that you both agree on (you can see that extensive discussion between the partners will save you in attorney costs)Open a bank account (free or close to it) using the newly formed LLC certificate and operating agreementNow you have a functioning company. 

Also, I haven't met the right people who can help me make informed decisions when purchasing my first few..

Also my insurance agent says it's harder for him to get insurance from good companies on old older homes, unless the electrical, roof, and plumbing and have been updated. 

I also have sewer & water line insurance provided by DEP via American Water Resources (AWR) but every time I call them, they say there has to be a clog and all they will take care of will be fixing the clog.