Canadian Interested in Purchasing in the US

[Jarrod English]

Hello, I've been aware of Bigger Pockets for about a year now. Had some simple ideas about long term passive cash flow by slowly acquiring buy and hold properties.  I've got one house that has a basement suite and the upstairs is about to get renovated and rented out as well.  I intended on picking up another similar house for my next investment but houses here are going for at least $350,000 and am starting to take interest in the US market.

I've been browsing on here and everyone seems to agree you need a great partner in the city you're acquiring property as well as a lawyer and accountant to handle all the legalities/taxes.  There was also a topic discussing using a corporation or joint venture and other options.  I think currently I'd be more interested in a buy and hold where I try and obtain my own financing and the partner is just there for property management.  Ideally I'm thinking I could find someone reputable on Bigger Pockets :)
I may also be interested in funding a flip as this would get me some short term profits.

I found a useful link on here showing the average housing prices of major cities in the US and I am going to start exploring Zillow and Trulia.  What I wanted to know is where people think some great opportunities are and how people go about looking for their next purchase in the US (I'll start searching around as there are probably tips on this in other forums).  For those that have entered into this sort of business arrangement, have you purchased the house on your own or with a realtor's help, or do you have your partner in the US locate properties for you for a small fee?

Any advice is greatly appreciated as I'm looking to gather all the information and just start casually browsing properties.  I'm actually going on a mini vacation to Phoenix from July 1st-5th and would love to spend a few hours with someone there if they don't mind showing me around.  My plans for now are just a little research and to start being more active on here and see if I can find some potential partners, and then make a trip down to the states to meet them and make my first purchase sometime in 2014!

Thanks!