And I think what you saying is that on BP there is a lot of RA RA that newer or first time landlord investors don't really fully comprehend all aspects of being a landlord. especially a long distance one. 

It will keep distance from the emotional side of the purchase. 1st deals are a exciting, but don't get soul crushed by it.

They currently live in Northern California so property managers that have experience working with long distance owners are preferred.Any help would be much appreciated!

To start I'd recommend David Greene's book Long Distance Real Estate Investing. 

It comes down to egress and travel distance. 

If you're motivated by time constraints and/or certainty, take the 40% down offer.If you're motivated by netting the most, take the 5% down offer and hope for the best.Naturally, do the multiple offer counteroffer thing and see how much you can bring the 40% down offer up by before deciding. 

I found someone to do it, he live some distance away, a heavy snowstorm hit, so heavy that the city couldn't get it's plows out.

But the closest one I found so far is in the Dr Phillips area of Orlando, which is out of our range, distance wise.  

BiggerPockets community / Long distance investors / @David Greene :)If you were making a decision to invest in a new market, are there any PEOPLE that would provide more helpful and valuable information than google, zillow, rentometer, etc?

You want to create a false time constraint here (which might be too late now that youve let them create the timeline with after the holidays).