I agree with the rest of the posters. This doesnt sound like a good investment you want to get into. The last 3 rentals i bought were out of state and although its scary to get into, if you research your butt off and make sure you do it right, you can come across a winner. One of the big factors for investing out of state is having a good property manager. The first steps you would want to do is first:
1) Find a city that you are interested in investing in that has much better returns. Some criteria you want to look out for are increasing population, good rent to price ratios, diverse economy. Stuff like that, you can find that kind of info just researching on the internet. city-data, census, crime reports, etc..
2) Interview multiple property managers in the new desired location and find one that you would be willing to work with and has good referrals you can talk to. You can do this all over the phone and email.
3) Start looking at available properties and running numbers on them. When you find a few that you like, run it by your PM that you are going to do business with and see what they say. They will know the local areas well and will be able to confirm some of your numbers.
4) Fly to the new city and check all the neighborhoods, areas and potential properties. Make sure you like the city yourself and that youre satisfied with what you see.
5) Once you have a property you want to put under contract, put it under contract and get a contingency based on the inspection and appraisal results. You need to be able to walk away if it turns out bad.
Those are just basic steps but you get the idea. There is plenty of money that can be made investing outside of your local area. Trust me, i know because im doing it. I was priced out of where I live now in Austin, TX. I have 3 properties here and now that I cant find good deals, I was forced to go out of state. So far its going great. Right now Im actually saving up to buy my 4th out of state rental.