And there are certainly large margins to be made.. the big builders in many markets want lots in real time they look for middle men to bring them to them.. in our Market here in PDX where they are located there are a few of them..

Can you find a market 1-2 hours away instead of 6 hours away?

The entire premise of this plan relies on the appraised value of a duplex, and how much $150k gets you in your market.

Right now, I am thinking of turnkey out-of-state if the market continues at this pace because property taxes are so high in El Paso and rent growth has not increased with prices. 

I'm just not finding anything available or currently on the market that I would want to live in myself.

You won't find anything worth while in this area that's listed you'll need to connect with wholesalers to find off market deals or do marketing to find them yourself.

In today's market, many office landlords would much rather walk away from their properties and take a loss than fight to attract tenants and avoid foreclosure.

Sounds like you were actually getting a deal before at $60/year but it wasn't digital..

It’s highly passive and there not much to do other than network and marketing.

(I have no stake in this other than I just read this section in the book, and this is not some kind of marketing ploy by me.)