I was picking his brain about the attitude and culture of the locals towards real estate investing and out of state investors.

Cold calling is already such a poor-performing strategy. the ONE thing good about cold calling is that you are talking to a HUMAN, building rapport, and asking and answering questions.Now that ONE good thing about it is taken away...Like David above me, no experience, and it would indeed be interesting to see how it does, but that doesn't take away from what I mentioned above.

You should also pick a market - I think BP has a tool for that.

I usually use a RE agent for sales, but I'm not sure how to pick one. 

Highly recommend you DM @Samuel Eddinger and buy him lunch to pick his brain!

To avoid going through the same poor experience, keep reading.Even if someone give you a referral, don’t make the mistake of assuming that PMC will meet your expectations, just because they met the expectations of the referral source.We also can’t believe how many owners hire the first PMC they speak with!

In the past five years, I’ve picked up 20 more properties using BRRRR, plus some subject-to deals, wraparounds, novations, and JVs.

They normally do a very poor job that will have to be corrected later - drips on the floor, doors walls and molding, poor job of cutting in, bleed through on the walls.

If you live in WA state, would you pick your local WA state market over an out of state rental, and why? 

Ohh but wait most of you on here all probably well off and can afford to help out a relative.The other issue with SCI is that when they first took over their maintenance of the park was poor at best (snow plowing, grass mowing).