You can find something in Durham and parts of Raleigh, specifically zips 27610, 27603, and parts of 27604 that would meet your criteria, however generally speaking most of the inventory that would fit what you are looking for in Raleigh or Durham would likely be in neighborhoods that I personally wouldn't want to invest in, C- to D type neighborhoods.

I personally use the mass text capabilities through my Resident RE CRM.However I have a few friends who wholesale and invest and use Mobile Monkey to mass text and from what they say the price is pretty reasonable.

Personally, my favorite way of sourcing deals is building relationships with brokers and nurturing those relationships by checking in consistently.

i think you can be successful if you are willing to do what you alluded to, which is spend time in person in your chosen market. 

I plan on driving alot to find distressed or run down multifamily properties that possibly are owned by an out of state investor and reaching out however would like everyone's opinion or personal experience on some other creative ways.

Quite the opposite - I invest my personal money as just one more member, in each investment we end up doing as a club. 

Quote from @John Fleming: I don't have any personal recommendations, but something below may help you in the search.Start by going to www.narpm.org to search their directory of managers.

When your LLC takes a loan, expect as members to personally guarantee the debt.

I have about 100k in assets both personal and business I could sell, but part of me thinks that’s extreme and I’ll sell “myself” along the way with all my stuff.  

You are correct… if a person has 600k and they can afford to risk it going alone in a new country and that’s what they want to do with the money then why not go it alone.