I bet if you doubled your budget he would increase his presence in your life which is the wrong way to be as an agent.  

Every transaction is composed of "deal" points and "legal" points.

I don't think I qualify for a loan in the US as I have no presence there at all.

Most firms do not have a nation-wide presence (with nation-wide fee structure). 

My past experience has been in corporate marketing.ExperienceHaving only been with Creative Alternative Solutions for the past five months, I find the field of Real Estate Investing very challenging, particularly since I live in Damascus, VA and my company is located in Richmond, VA.Real Estate GoalsI am comfortable with the traditional marketing formats, but struggle to learn how to incorporate Social Media in our Marketing endeavors and to assist my General Manager in promoting our services to establish a solid, quality network team and build our buyer and seller leads.Currently SeekingEducation on best practices to find buyers for our properties and to build our presence in the Richmond, VA market.

Along with that, there's been a solid amount of industrial activity, particularly near Riverport and the Bluegrass Commerce Park, due to a strong presence of manufacturing companies in Louisville. 

There's a lot of stable employment in the area such as several multi-billion dollar companies that have a presence in the area (Hershey, TE Connectivity, Phoenix Contact, Rite Aide, ) as well as many Federal jobs on top of all the state jobs that @Bill Goodland mentioned.

If you go in there and sincerely show an interest in the park and what they do, in many cases - your presence will be received more positively.

It seems like it would be valuable to have more presence online (facebook ads, website, etc) directing traffic to the booking site rather than only advertising on Airbnb, etc.

Managing real estate requires on-suite presence, which can't really be replaced by a software application.