Between the realtor, face time and the inspector you know what you’re buying.

Schedule a detailed walkthrough of your properties with you and your manager and a home inspector. 

Not all agents are great, but working with a great one as an investor is well worth it, in my experience, simply for the access to their knowledge and referrals to other great teammates like lenders, inspectors, contractors, etc. 

I'm a realtor currently trying to gain contacts and two key ones I'm lacking right now are an inspector and a handyman.

Let's start with how I ended up being in the office that day: Chris saw my post about needing recommendations for an inspector in Memphis for the property I intended to buy during my trip. 

To answer your question about inspecting the property, an investor friendly realtor should be able to help connect you with a local inspector with a good track record and multiple property managers who should also be able to help answer most of your questions.  

I recently spoke with the town's zoning inspector, who confirmed that the building is in a GB (General Business) zone.

With the right teams in place - investor focused realtor / inspector / PM / Lender - you should be able to get a good idea of the quality of investment it will be. 

The classic one was Tenant leaving huge amounts of grease in kitchen, inspector requires landlord to clean it up.2) Tenant vacates the unit without notice early in the month.

FYI I did my due diligence and got a home inspector that was relatively OK.