Joe I think one of the issues with rentals that need to be fed is how people have such a fixation on ROI and leverage . 

There are guidelines and guardrails, but a challenging deal can have positives and a golden deal can have issues below the surface.

I think your biggest issue with any "work-arounds" is going to be your legal liability and holding the proper insurance in case something goes wrong, which I'm going to assume you'd need to be properly licensed in order to be properly covered by insurance.

We typically have a specific criteria of contingencies we are putting into place within the purchase and sales agreement to help protect our investor clients from many of the issues that arise when inherenting tenants.

That is done via placing the highest quality tenant possible, keeping issues to absolute minimum, keeping maintenance and service calls to minimum, because to make it work properties have to operate on cruise-control.

It'll range from - no problem link a bank account and continue payments to you have 30 days to pay back the loan or we'll default it.

Traveling to other states isn’t an issue for me. 

On paper numbers and in reality numbers are completely different. this is because with riskier investments you have higher chances for evictions, maintenance issues, management calls, non payments of rent, damage to property etc.

Depending on the severity of smoke damage and structural issues, it could be a huge challenge for first time flip.

.However...... with it being out of state you have another issue.