My name is Ryan and I live in Orange County NY.

Judging from the REOs the come on the market here in South Orange County, I don't think wholesaling REOs would be an option for me. 

All of this is the fruit of action.

So far I've just been checking out rent online, but it's hard to compare apples to oranges

We are doing that in Orange County, CA.

If you have some capital, I would consider places like Nocal Bay area, San Diego, Orange County, Seattle, etc.

Can anyone recommend a home inspector that covers both Los Angeles and Orange County?  

I'll reply with what trick solves it.Right now I'm looking at a bleach solution on the tile and concrete floors, and maybe just a simple 409 Orange (watered down a bit) for the walls.I'm also pinging a local Austin ozone treatment service to get a quote on having the house treated.

I found a couple of single family and multi family in Bloomfield, West Orange, Orange, and Union New Jersey.

I am purchasing outside of LA/Orange County, there are still some sub-50k properties in the outskirts. :) We drove around looking for abandoned properties we liked for a buy/hold, culled the list to 12-15 properties meeting specific criteria,  then I located the owner's phone number (or family members) and we called them.