While it's certainly not a solution to your need for a property manager, having family close by who can sometimes drive by or who have their own local vendor connections, will definitely be a help for an out of state investor.  

I don't hire contractors who drive Porsches.

If you are not buying until within the next year then I do not know why this agent is showing you properties.That is nothing more than a site seeing tour and all the properties you look at if worth anything will be gone by then.Seems like just meeting up with a local investor and going to lunch and driving around for initial area review would make more sense.When an investor says they are thinking of doing something next year so many things can happen between now and then that it becomes a probable long shot based on time alone.

Drive for dollars?  

I drive around a lot.

It's really a matter of deciding where I wanted to focus my interest, and since I love driving for dollars it's close and reasonably safe.Toxey

How much unpaid time did you spend driving to potential jobs, taking measurements, putting together bids, etc?

i do shorter amms because i want them paid off, and keep the cash flow, its one thing if you want 100+ properties, but 15- 20 paid for ones gives me an easy 6 figure income forever, and ever, and my kids lives and their kids lives if managed properly. pay alittle more now for the flexibility, and get them paid off, so what if you have to re-up in 3-5 years, interest rates wont be 10% then, and if they are inflation will drive your rents to cover it anyway, inflation is great in real estate, it means your property will be worth more,  but the purchase price was pre inflation.

(Rte. 161) in Dublin between Riverside Drive and Sawmill Road.

Btw, my post stands to clarify, I do see the trends of company relocations, population and job growth continuing for Dallas and many large and smaller markets in Texas driving housing demand.