They will read about reasons to visit a geographic area, based on what you’ve written in your vacation Soup hosted website, and then they’ll find the link to your website. 

I've seen speakers discuss REITs, screening tenants, section 8 housing, syndication deals in Belize, and the really popular ones are when you can visit a property that is currently being flipped.

Have the property managed by a professional as an out of state investor and you are good to go again with a reason (deduction) to visit a nice warm spot once in a while.

@Ernie Castaneda - In general, any place you start, make sure you know it or have someone on your side who does (like an agent or a friend, etc).The reason I say this is because I've seen this first hand in my area, lots of people "invest" in a neighboring city because it's super cheap to buy, and there's very obviously a reason it's very cheap to buy and they end up in a bad situation if they aren't smart about it.So if you aren't far, visit a few times and learn about the different areas and parts of town you want to be in or not, what the rents are in certain areas and what renters look for and in what area.

Go visit a few of the properties as well.

Another question I have is, would having an inspector and a few different contractors visit a property before offering make sense?

I'm actually flying to Cleveland for a couple days this weekend and will be in Dayton to visit a friend (he's also Active Duty Air Force) on Sat/Sun, would love to meet any locals so pm me if you are by any chance available Sunday.  

A respectful engineer shouldn’t charge for this site visit as they always need to do a site visit prior to providing a proposal for their work.

She will have to do that, so, another reason to visit a lawyer. 

Answering your question, I would visit a few different markets and people in them to determine where you will invest, then leverage 50% and buy the other half of properties without financing.