And I’m not talking about FHA or government-backed loans, these are either in-house mortgages or commercial products so I would think they have the flexibility to work with me.

A couple of things I WISH it had, if you are listening @Brandon Turner :-), are the ability to export to excel so we can do studies covering ALL years and a 'depreciation feature' like the Investment Property Calculator over at Dinkytown.com. 

I totally agree, based on your objectives and fact you will not have a local PM, that trying a cash for keys approach might be the most productive. 

Like Nathan said, there are a lot of products out there to solve the problem of screening tenants so it would be worth checking those out.

You might want to look into the loan product Fannie Mae calls "Homestyle".

I have a dedicated acreage (part of a 'change of use' to new 'best and highest' value model) in a dedicated site, barb wire secured, that might be suitable for wild simulated ginseng production.

Where as, if a broke investor started off with a 50K property and put only 5k worth of work into it and 60 days later its worth 125K. that is a excellent move. otherwise it will take a monthly cashflow focused investor forever to to stack up that amount of money vs my example 0f 60 days. 

It’s an excellent place to start, and can answer many of your questions.

But it's the paperwork (the Lease Agreement, the Option Agreement, etc.) that will have the biggest impact on your success or lack thereof.Do not do lease-option unless you have received adequate training and have access to excellent documents.Since you are here in Georgia, I would strongly recommend you look at the training and documents offered by Dyches Boddiford.

The fact the company stayed on for 6-months after the sale shows they are at least somewhat concerned with the quality of their product.