Next issue is belts or rollers on the drier.  

I've been in their Sun Belt Fund for 18 months.

The short is, you shouldn't be looking to invest right now, you should be looking to learn and connect with other local investors.You have home ownership under your belt, so you want to build on that.

Once you get some experience under your belt then if you still want to invest out of state then try one OOS rental and see where it goes.

Has anyone focused on these southern belts?  

Get several flips under your belt and get a sense of what things you can do on your own.

Get some experience under your belt doing a quad, duplex or even a SFH on your own.

Also, here is a link to my personal page where 40+ investors have left reviews for me that have work with us in the past.https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/ZacharyCole/references  This should help to build your confidence in our team as well, but again, it all goes back to getting that first rental under our belts so you have some first hand experience to judge from. 

The metro area population of Montgomery in 2022 was 367,000, a 1.94% increaseResidents and large corporations are attracted to the State of Alabama's pro business climate of low taxes and Sun Belt weather.

You might need to tighten the belt and save up a larger down.