There are plenty of ways online to learn about various cities.

You have plenty of time to screen a good team so when you make your return home you can start things up ASAP.  

I know plenty of landlords that are only getting $300-$500 a month.

If you need any more info on the deal I have plenty of it, I just didn't want to make my post too long.

Then invite them to lunch or your office if you have one and go through your prospectus and business plan.

There should be plenty of info here for that.If you have a viable plan, but don't want to go through with a complete "business plan", you could try crowd funding, like kickstarter.Keep at it!

5.She is trying to get $50,000 total to try to fix up the reno project plus pay for the expensive repairs on the other properties.6.She would also like to refinance the other properties which may be under commercial loans but deeds are in trust.One is over 12% and others I believe are over 8%.7.Her personal property has a mortgage for $130,000 and is showing about that value on auditors website + corelogic/Zillow.However, they completed gutted and rehabbed their house many moons ago and turned it from a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom church house into 5/6 bedroom 4.5 bath house.I believe theres plenty of equity to be found here but she’s afraid if she gets an appraisal for HELOC either she will waste money and it will come out to what the internet says or the county will reappraise the house and raise her taxes significantly which she can’t afford right now.8.She has a promissory note from a lawyer my stepdad lent $50,000 to some time ago.The note was due for $83,000 balloon in 2011 but he has only paid $5,000 on it.I don’t know the full details of this but she is supposed to send me a copy.Thanks for any help...this is pretty complicated, especially since I don't have the paperword to really lay down the exact details. 

Lots of great info here and plenty of contacts to be made in the Richmond area.

You can find plenty of properties that are outdated, put some lipstick on that pig and roll a quick 25K.  

I'm still a ways away from needing help (plenty of research still to do), but it would definitely be helpful to have a broker/inspector contact!