Do I search out large institutional banks or smaller local community banks? 

Here are some recommendations for you: Find and connect with other BP members that are in your area: https://www.biggerpockets.com/search/usersSet up keyword alerts to be notified of the topics that interest you: http://www.biggerpockets.com/alertsIf you wish to tag someone in the conversation on the forum, type @ followed by their name and then select the name of that person which should appear below the comments box.

However, in perfect timing,  my RE business has recently taken an unplanned (but very welcomed) turn as I have had 3 different investors approach me within the past month to assist on their investment search! 

I searched them up in the system we use to look up properties a few of them had no addresses (to mail to) but "Owner's phone numbers." 

They passed a credit check, federal and state criminal and eviction searches.

@Joshua Callanan In Maryland, I go to the Department of Taxation website and search the legal entity search.

@Gregory Schwartz,compress your search a bit on BP, and target (pun intended) the military and military in deployment managing remotely threads.Also plenty of remote investing stories, some even including their methodology and steps...Your boots on the ground team counts more than anything.

They offer searches at about $1/search.

Also, they only do eviction and Bankruptcy searches for Maine, not for the other states.Because of this, I signed up with Rentec Direct, which allows me to see the actual credit report. 

There are online sites for landlords (such as BiggerPockets) and online sites for renters (Google "apartment ratings" and pretend you are a renter looking for a place to live).