@mrsmeganmustache,
My wife and I are going through the exact same thing at the moment, only we are staying in the same city. I'm sure moving to a new state makes the process even more overwhelming.
A few tips I would suggest, based on my recent experience (on day 44 of the process, and still not closed on either the sale or the purchase, but we're close)...
1) Picking an agent. Well, in your case agent(s) I suppose, because of the new state. We picked our agent because she was a top producer for her large agency, she was super professional, and she promised to be accommodating with our schedule. She is youngish (been an agent for 3 years) but that didn't bother us because we could tell she was motivated (and she provided sales figures to back it up). In short, she marketed herself as someone who hustles.
2) Buying and selling at the same time. We are also selling in a hot market. Our house sold in 4 days and it's not exactly fancy or well finished. Your agent should be able to tell you how hot the market it, as in how many months of inventory is currently on the market. Be prepared to get offers in the first few days if it's a really hot market. So actually I'd start the process of looking for new homes NOW, because it will likely take you longer to find a home than it will take to sell yours. That's the situation we're in. If you're able to get a good mortgage rate with only the 20% down, all the better. We didn't have that ability and we HAD to wait until we at least had an offer before we could start making our own offers. In a hot market, no one is going to entertain an offer contingent on getting an offer unless you wayyyy overpay.
I can't help you with buying out of state stuff. Sorry!