I bought Brandon Turner's audio book "The Book on Rental Property Investing" that day, and plowed through it every chance I got.

If I had to do all over again, I would buy in areas that attract better quality tenants.Personally, I would never go under 1% unless I was very confident the area is going up in value.  

You can build shutters for ~10 bucks a pop including stain/paint with 1x6 cedar boards and two strips of 1x4 cedar (or whatever quality wood you want).  

I am slowly getting comfortable with pulling the trigger soon but would like to know of quality/trustworthy agents, mortgage brokers, and property managers in the area that I could utilize since I am not physically in the area.

From there I may give some quality wholesalers my contact information but I usually watch people closely so not to have people wasting my time with worthless deals.  

Identifying quality investments that meet the criteria for risk vs return, getting people to actually invest in the deal, negotiating the deal, convincing the seller to accept your offer with contingencies, and working through title issues are much, much harder

What is the best approach to finding high-quality wholesalers in this region?

Some of the cost will depend on finish quality leve (high end vs low end) l as well.

So the deal flow will be of lower quality. 

In short what I am trying to say is that many buyers have express the need for quality wholesale deals.