My first out of state rental - Looking for some advice

[David Donald Henning Jr.]

Hey all! Birmingham, AL is my target city for a boat load of reasons, but I live up in Philadelphia, PA. That's not going to stop me, I'm currently building a team over in Birmingham to get my portfolio started, but I wanted to get some advice about how the out of state buying process normally works. Do I normally have my awesome real estate agent ALL of the legwork? Should I be visiting, asking neighbors questions, getting a feel for the neighborhood and home (in person rather than just off of online research) before buying or making offers? 

Guys, anything helps. This will be my first investment property and I'm a little leery about this whole out of state buying process since I've never done this before. Thank you everyone in advance!