being hands-on and local is a big advantage.

To answer your question yes its enough but in many cases it might be risky.2. location, room to raise rents, occupancy of property, local laws, type of investment are just a few topics that play a huge part. 

Reach out to local banks, take them to lunch and tell them your story.

They can also look into local workforce development programs that might help them find new employment quickly.

Go to your local Real Estate Investors Association. 

Most local house flippers keep to themselves from what I noticed since I know a lot of them.

Quote from @Sebastian Bennett: I've been actively using BiggerPockets for over a while, have been educating myself and attending a lot of networking events.

You can connect with the local chamber of commerce and/or planning and development departments to find what is coming to the area that would create some appreciation.

I attended his conference before.  

Say you are new to this, make it funny, but you are looking to buy houses locally because you want to invest in your backyard.