They've even called my mom who we don't live with anymore (but lived with at the time we applied for the loan).

That is a great tip! 

I figured the PM would definitely be local to the area of the property and would need different PM's for each area, those were just the areas I'd like to invest in. 

Wayfair has aesthetically pleasing options but I worry they are cheaply made and won’t hold up.

Focus on absentee owners and start with the ones who live the farthest away and only own one property in the area since they have the least use for the property.You can also drive for dollars, looking for anomalies of disrepair and then look them up in the tax records and use a site like Spokeo to do cheap skip tracing.

It's time to run the numbers to determine the cash-flow.

I'm here in the Tampa Florida area too...

.$300K is the new $200K. 

I always check probate courts for estate filings and possible Conservatorship of a senior.Another possibility is that ownership has already changed and title held by entity, just waiting to take next step to rehab, demo, assemble other ownership, etc.

These small conveniences can save you time and money in the long run.For rent collection, you can try Rent.app, which is easy for tenants to use and keeps everything streamlined.