First place to look is the library of books for sale in the Bigger Pockets store. 

I'm moving into a lower income neighborhood where there are corner stores in between houses and folks sitting on their stoop during working hours, and the crime is lower there than the city I live in with 500K homes and horse farms.

Better quality for the same price as the big box stores. 

@Bill Thomas BP keeps all legal forms under the Store directory.

Our main concern now is the time it takes to clean and store linens as we still do this work ourselves. 

All as if you're going to do it yourself.That way you'll have a pretty damn good figure of what it costs to remodel a bathroom, replace the flooring in a 1,500 sq ft house, landscape a backyard, etc.That'll be an amazing education for you, and you won't have to take a contractor's word for it when they quote you a price.Also I would get the BiggerPockets book for estimating rehab costs too while you're at it:https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/flipping-estimating-physicalNot the answer you were looking for, but hopefully it's the information you need.

So do your due diligence and make sure that the strategy you know works in California will work in other states as well.If you don't know the area, here's what you'll need:A local real estate agentA loan officer licensed to originate loans in that stateA local property manager (they should have repairmen, contractors, etc. contacts for you)It works best when you have local "boots on the ground" so to speak, meaning friends or family members who can keep an eye on the property for you... which your property manager can do for you, but for a fee.I would recommend reading BiggerPocket's book on long distance real estate investing for a ton of other tips as well: https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/long-distance-real-estate-investing-ultimateIf you have any questions about the Phoenix Metro Area market when you're considering which area to invest in, feel free to reach out and I'll try to get your questions answered or point you in the right direction!

I have a commercial lot located across the street from a Large Grocery store  HEB, in a smaller rural Texas town.

Just be open to what the universe has in store for you, she will come. 

If you have the room you could build a few storage units and charge tenants to store their extra stuff if there is a need for this.