Find an area that you visit a few times a year - any place with family or friends that you visit often?

Hey Zachary,The NARPM website would be a good place to visit to find local Property Managers or visit a local meetup where you'll find PMs and realtors. 

When you go visit a house you can take pictures or videos and then go home and make a more specific estimate of what you’ll think needs work.

In which case, do you have a GC/crew lined up who are (i) likely to be available to do the work in the near future, and (ii) would be willing to visit a property before you decide on an offer, to estimate rehab costs?

Some don't site visit a property until after an offer.  

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.