I can be of assistance with finding below market properties! 

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

In this market I would recommend hard money, would love to connect and discuss your options however!

I have good friends who call them and market to them, but preforeclosures are really tiring.

@Herminia Ojeda I second trying to choose a market you have a connection to.

It's possible but it's determined by your local market, the size of the roof, and materials used.

There will be a lot of proven people here who demonstrate that you can totally self manage an out of state property.It really will depend on you, the market, the property, and a few other factors some of which may be out of your control.I would not look at PM strictly as a cost, there are a lot of good local PM's who can add value to your property. 

I’d look in some market specific fb groups 

Hi @Yulia Volokhina,All of these markets are very close to each other geographically, so you're not going to see massive differences between any of these.

We are considering, if successful, purchasing an additional property/rental for grad students (hopefully less wear and tear) and what seems like a consistent rental market.