I'm a new investor, my plan to invest out of state

[Chris Ochsner]

Hello, I am 21 and am on the leadership board of my college's real estate club for the past year. I learned a lot about the opportunity of investing out of state since I go to school and live on the West Coast and houses here cost a lot more. Over the past 2 months, I created a pitch slideshow to convince my parents to go 50/50 with me on a rental property in the Midwest and hopefully more after that. They loved the pitch! My father is very smart and business oriented and has made a couple million with a few properties in our hometown (whether that's luck or skill I do not know but we would call it a little of both). He does not know anything about out-of-state and I know very little. 

My plan is to create a buy box for the type of town we are looking to purchase in, then a buy box for the type of house we are looking for. Once we narrow down to 1-2 cities we will contact all of the realtors in that area and interview them a little to vet who we want to work with and get recommendations for PMs. We will then contact the PMs and vets to see who we like and also ask some questions to help us better understand the town's market and what areas are good and bad. With the realtor sending my father and I deals, we will analyze them, then pull the trigger on one and work without PM to get that property renovated and ready to rent. 

Are there any flaws in the plan or anything we are overlooking/should investigate more? Like should we spend much time creating a city buy box or go with a realtor that works in a bigger metropolitan in the Midwest and use some of their judgment for areas?