Without a crew on the ground, relying on recommendations from people you don't know is always risky. 

There are a ton of reviews of Propstream and other systems people use here on BP that you can do a simple search to read the reviews

Avoid the cash offer stuff, and saying quick closing in letters, use emotion, people really do respond well to it.

I couldn't help but notice the numbers you mentioned are what I recommend people start with (50-60k for out of state investors).

Some people decide to leave their jobs to invest in real estate, which might involve buying a property that initially loses money.

Metropolitan area has like 120k people and a range of areas (urban, suburban, and rural all in one).

I know some people who have tenants living above with no issues.

This is a great place to learn and to connect with people so take advantage of all the great resources.

You can look up cash buyers on propwire free, and reach out to the LLC owners by looking them up, or call the agent and ask them.Another option would be to find some private money lenders, and get them to go down on a hard money loan with you, unless you can get all the capital from one person alone (this is very difficult because most people won't loan that much to someone new to real estate). 

We've tweaked our model over the past 15 years and we're simply not willing to overpay like a lot of people, but if you find a deal where the numbers truly make sense, I think Plant City is a great place to invest.