It would rent out pretty easily if you needed to wait for prices to stabilize and more buyers to come back into that area.

Facts, real world results, and human nature can't sway them because their understanding doesn't go any deeper than buzzwords and a conviction that if the whole world just thought like them then all the world's problems would be easily solved.  

For perspective, outside of SF you can easily get a place to rent for 2500 or so, figure another 1500 for day care.

On these lower priced type properties why don't investors simply invest with a group local to them in larger properties that are more expensive where they live or simply invest maybe the next state or so over so you can easily travel there?

You can easily do this on a spreadsheet, and it will take less time to track than finding and learning new software.

This helps investors filter down their view of the entire market and not have to go one property at a time. 

This is something a qualified contractor can easily resolve.

Making matters worse the investor with limited resources cannot recover as easily as the investor who makes the risky investment but does so knowing they can afford to take the L. 

He says it's worth it to pay a manager because not seeing what's going on is like the fox watching the henhouse and the landlord can easily get ripped off.

I don't know what they are about, but what do they purport to teach you about Section 8 not easily disseminated from online material already available?