Im talking about a solid presence in the streets, in your circles of influence, in your social medias, in real estate blogs, etc?

If you are going to go the absentee owner route and want to keep it close to your hometown, maybe consider something closer to Columbus with better demographics & a property management presence.

Like - strong crime & drug presence in areaTo go deeper into the details, I did have a tenant in one of the two units for a few months...under market rental price (to your point...lowering the rental price did get me a tenant)...and he was great...but the drugs were so bad in that particular area that he was essentially chased out. 

I've put in 12 - 18 hour days, 6 days a week, working on building this vision - from concept to logistics, marketing strategies, market identification, building a network of vendors, chatting with investors, building business development strategies that have passed proof of concept, creating hiring strategies and an online HR management system, building a social media presence, creating marketing agency-grade marketing collateral, establishing branding, website building, building relationships with hard money lenders, you name it, I've worked on it and achieved success there.

This is true especially in the beginning, when you don't have a web presence yet.

Buyer shall satisfy themselves as to the presence or absence of Meth. 

That doesn't mean the lender has to have a physical presence in that State.

After trying to establish a real estate auction presence in Buffalo, I am redesigning my company to include traditional brokerage services, auction services and wholesale services.

I have used this technique a couple of times just to show police presence at my property after it was vandalized.I would also suggest calling your insurance carrier at a minimum to see what coverages may apply to you.  

Once you have taken some action, decided on what part of real estate you will conquer, spoke with lots of experienced people and read lots of posts here on BP, then compose a more detailed plan.Good Luck