My mom has been an agent in North East Ohio for 22 years but has never really worked with investors but she really knows the market and she hired me on as her PA and I've been teaching her the ways of being a investor friendly realtor.

Agents can smell a new investor from a mile away, regardless if you have a preapproval letter or not.

The offer I want to put in today is in North Carolina. 

It's imperative that you pay less attention to outside noise that may burn you out and tune your focus to that the family is trying to achieve.Let's say you can't find deals in the DFW area, then expand your search criteria miles out .

I tried running comps, that didn’t workout because majority of the ones sold within a 1-2 mile radius were on its own piece of land so the land was really where the value came from. 

I will say best is to find something in bay area, if not find something within 50 miles to bay area.

(County within an hour drive and city within 15 mins or miles, I’d have to look to see which) Both will perform well, you may get a slightly higher occupancy in the county.

Start ~5  miles from your property, then ~10 miles, then ~15, etc. 

I was referring to North Carolina when I mentioned Jacksonville.Yes,  I tried all kinds of searches and there's currently nothing for duplexes in Jacksonville, NC...  

@Jake Bryant I just got a house under contract Friday for $350,000 off list price in North Austin