Out of State vs. Out of Country Investing

[Hillel Mansfield]

I grew up in the US until the age of 20, and have been living abroad for the past 15 years.  Now I want to start investing in U.S. real estate (real estate opportunities in my current location are not so attractive).  However, it would take me a 12 hour flight to reach any given destination in America.

As there are many resources on out of state investing, I was wondering: do all the same rules apply if one is living outside the country?  Does this change the calculus in terms of how desirable it is to be a long distance investor?