The agent I've been using provided policies with Country, Foremost and American Reliable for the houses and Coventry health insurance.

I am also from Maryland but in Salisbury on the eastern shore.

It also seems from reading Bigger Pockets that there are a lot of places around the country with much better ROI than Texas for buy and hold investors.

You have to set up a US entity (usually an LLC but may vary depending on your country....like Canada isn't an LLC it's another weird acronym (I forget what)) and a US bank account.

It varies, but in many parts of the country property taxes are 1-2% of the purchase price.

Kindly take a look a the diagram labeled 70 Safe Haven Residential Rental Markets.http://www.realtytrac.com/news/real-estate-investi...Additionally, with regard to your concern about the 2% rule, this is not sustainable in various parts of the country.

I assist clients who live out of state and out of country with their rental investments here in Cleveland.

Before posting questions on a country wide (world wide) forum landlords first need to research their state landlord tenant regulations to determine how their state requires a landlord to act.

As mentioned above, St Louis is a great cash flow city and really pretty unique from many places in the rest of the country because of the number of 2 and 4 family homes that you can pick up for great prices (and which still return great rents). 

Nationwide Property Investments has educated many on ths topic in live workshops and seminars around the country.