New member looking to learn from the community

[AJ Sherman]

Hello all.

I am a new member to the board. I am a West Coaster, but have been deployed by my company to Singapore for an assignment. I love it here in SE Asia, but still have a desire to start investing in real-estate in the US. I'm finally to a point in my life where I have some resources to look at investing. I'm in the states about 3x a year.

I am reading all of the great resources on Bigger Pockets. Truly some great stuff on the blogs. I have identified a few regions in the US where I'd like to look. I've also identified agents through trusted friends/family that I want to partner with. I'm looking at single family homes.

As a next step, I'd like to do more research and flush out a good "Section Criteria" prior to engaging agents....i.e. to give general direction on town, neighborhood, property size, etc. I am looking for advise on how best to get educated from afar. I'm looking at the greater areas in Phoenix and Raleigh. Is it okay to ask these new agents to identify good neighborhoods based on my financial criteria and goals, or should I expect that they'll want some clearer direction on my part? Any tools/resources that can help me from afar?

Any advice is greatly appreciated so I make my first contact with these agents with a good foot forward. Great to be a new member of the board.

Thanks all!