I've been considering the newspaper, billboard blips (this is like a 10 second flip screen on the popular areas that rotates with everyone else's ads), craigslist, business cards, direct mail etc.  

Trust me if you have money available and are willing to partner with experienced investors so they will teach you, you will be a very popular guy. 

Absentee Owners have been popular for a long time, and are apparently still somewhat effective (people are still mailing to them) but they are getting multiple offers to buy their home.

If I would have know this would be such a popular post / topic I would have offered more detail and perspective about our plan and situation.

Absentee Owners have been popular for a long time, and are apparently still somewhat effective (people are still mailing to them) but they are getting multiple offers to buy their home.

I was thinking about my first investment being near the ocean close to a very popular vacation spot.

The hottest/most popular markets (West and North Asheville) will have the lowest vacancies and highest rents.

Not only is Sacramento a desirable rental market but your chances for appreciation are dramatically higher than going OOS to the popular cash-flow only markets in the Midwest.

Asking a prospective employer and calling schools were two of the most popular ways that I managed to find via the internet.

In the last 20 yrs here, these homes have been bought and fixed in popular areas around city tourism development, and people from states with high cost of living came and lived at a discount.