My 1st out of state property was rehabbed 3 months after hiring the wrong pm who placed the wrong tenant. 

Yes, I hired someone on odesk to search county records for me, and remove any lead that doesn't own real property. 

Mississippi  even the west coast states can be 6 or 7 months or less... there are new rules about not starting a foreclosure for 120 days if its owner occ.you can hire foreclosure trustee services to do this for you.

Some have hired real estate people to help out, but that is a lot different than having a founding team with real estate experience.  

They hire you and pay you X% of rental income for management services and you charge them one month's rent for each lease you negotiate.

You shouldn't work in Cobb County, I hear its terrible there and there's no deals...in fact, I hear anybody who works there gets horribly diseased and their wives leave them.On a serious note, I like to hire guys that aren't driving forever to get on site, but most GC's in Atlanta are used to driving across town, so they really dont have to be local to Cobb by a long shot.

If you are looking for access to listings then you might as well just hire a buyer's agent from Loopnet and they can search all the listings for you.

Others feel they need to hire a guru while others feel they need to pay for a seminar, meeting, meetup, conference, etc.

I would like to share a thought I had about the trifecta to look for when hiring a good GC for your flips; Quality work; get the job done in your time frame and within budget. 1st, I once heard on 1 of the BP podcasts (sorry I don't remember who it was on which #) that you can find those that excel in 2, aspects and the 3rd is "okay", but you will rarely find a GC that specializes in all the aspects.

You just need to hire a licensed GC.https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/67/topics/133818-flips-in-washington-state