All the homes on my list are distressed looking and have plenty of equity, assuming they didn't pull any out.

Assuming you're there for three years, that's plenty of time to vet repair vendors and property managers so that if you get different orders down the road you won't have to sell.Welcome @Collin Roszyk and best of luck!

Plenty of investors will buy at 70%.

You will have plenty of competition.  

Because he let us know what was going on with plenty of time for us to step in and make the purchase and we were able to work everything out.The difference is simple.  

In a situation where I can't see and inspect it myself I have to have someone I absolutely trust doing it for me and having a licensed and insured professional comes a long way in those cases.If you have done plenty of RE investing experience yourself you will have a good knowledge base to work from concerning values etc.  

I've been to plenty of meetups around here, it seems it's always full of new people that haven't done any deals or just want to wholesale.

I currently know plenty of investors out of Canada who have purchased several houses here in the Rochester market.

As Mohammad suggested earlier, working with a mentor (plenty to be found at our local REIAs) would be a great strategy as well.Best of luck.

There are plenty of deals in the DFW area.