If you're willing to be more active, purchase a property or two in an area you personally know well and have key contacts (handypeople, contractor, lender, etc.).

But it sounds like we'll have to swallow our pride and take your advice and contact a few real estate agencies.

Have her call a few churches or similar organizations to get contact info for who to talk to.

Then I started to contact brokers that bought and sold Apartments complexes and proceeded to 1031 exchange all my Condos for Apartment complexes and told my story on BP Podcast 238 in 2017.  

But this goes on the HUD - you don't pay these early.What scammers will do is ask for a portion of the downpayment or closing fees within days of contact. 

@Patrick Pan, if I was operating in a state where that was a concern I would just contact their current landlord for a reference.

putting a fund together to do this. there Is one in Texas called Texas triangle fund who raised 25 million dollars and focuses on national tract builders. individual funds versus pooled funds. higher end of the market is riskier the land entitlement guys I know wouldn't touch these unless it's entry level homes and national builder that is selling. good to have the contacts. in my two markets in Columbus Ohio and miami the only one where you can do this is Columbus Ohio because of affordable land prices.

I've already contacted the county planner and was told I'm not able to convert this garage to an ADU because of setback requirements.

For contact management like that its awesome to search for specific types of people and locations or just data like "how long does it take to foreclose in texas".We have some other use cases as well that we use to track not only ours but competitors results online and learning what does and does not work for different aspects of the business.

Also a good opportunity to learn some DIY maintenance and make some contractor contacts,etc.