If I were in your shoes, I would set up keyword alerts for the Texas cities you're interested in as well as any other keywords that are relevant to your plans.

WA is not a landlord friendly state, but if you are going to invest in WA, the eastern side has some hot spots like the tri-cities area that may yield good cash flow and appreciation and still be close enough for you to go there when you need to. 

Lead water lines have been a big topic here and I imagine in every older city in the midwest and east coast.

But ideally you don't tell us, you are just going to have agents pitch their city like @Julian De la Guardia & the sort.

I'm open to all suggestions regarding different cities that meet my requirements and would love to chat with some realtors who have local experience working with investors.  

In the cities the government got involved in housing and low income housing was built for poor people.

Depending on the lender and program your biggest hurdles might be credit score and income and time in job. 

@Brandon VanTuinen  FYI the appreciation rate in City of GR is around 6% right now, so you're making around $24,000 a year just living there.

-As far as trying to sell land with no access, sometimes I've sold those to neighbors who want to increase their acreage, or utility companies, cities or other public entities who could use the piece for whatever reason.

I've flipped about a dozen properties here in Chicago, and quite honestly, it felt like something different went wrong on each one of them.My biggest piece of advice is to KEEP IT SIMPLE starting out.