I looked at some of the 'middlemen' focussed on Australian investors, and while I think there may be some offering a decent service, they were not fully delivering on their promises of 'well priced property', arraning bank accounts or finance.
In the end I ended up identifying an area that I wanted to invest, found a responsive and helpful real estate agent to help identify the right property, a good building inspector, a helpful rep at the titles office and an agent to help form an LLC / EIN and provide a registered office. Yes, a bit to piece together but I am finding the process fairly straightforward and feel confident I am dealing with trustworthy people and getting fair value for money.
I suspect that many of these middle-men are actually making their money from the house-flip process, not from providing you a service... they buy a house in default, give it a lick of paint and turn it over to the captive audience of Aussies and Brits. If you go that path, just do as much due diligence as you can to ensure that the core purchase price of the property is still value for money and what you actually want. I would still always try and find an independent building inspector to review the property as a minimum and ensure that there is the ability to opt-out if the inspection yielded problems or a property that was not as good as described.
Good luck, the actual 'process' of purchasing property in the USA is quite a bit more straightforward than Australia. You just need to find the right people in the area where you want to invest to assist in piecing it together.
Regards,
Kruegs