Meeting realtor out of state (Montgomery AL)

[Melissa Camden]

Hello everyone,

I have listened to a lot of podcasts and read some books and want to start making moves in real estate. I currently am stationed at Pope AAF (Ft Bragg) North Carolina and am interested in investing in Montgomery Alabama because it seems to be cheap. I was looking on Zillow at some properties and got in touch with a realtor who knows a property management company and a broker to use. He wants to meet on my way back from Florida and show some neighborhoods and talk about what I'm interested in/my budget. However, being completely new to real estate investing I feel like I don't even know what I'm getting myself into and am nervous... I don't have any cash to buy homes outright so I'd want to start small. I feel very underprepared for this meeting... Does anyone have any advice about how I can prepare for a meeting like this? He knows I'm new to real estate investing and is willing to keep in touch with deals on the MLS. Sorry if this post was too vague...

Thank you.

[Denise Evans]

@Melissa Camden, make sure you know the neighbors. Spend several days driving away and taking lots of photo. Dictate notes about your photos using the Voice Memo feature of your cell phone. I usually write a neighborhood name on a piece of paper, take a photo of that, and then I know that all photos that follow are from that neighborhood.

Subscribe to the Montgomery newspaper and keep up with the Chamber of Commerce online newsletter to know what is going on. If there is a base newspaper for Maxwell, subscribe to it. Get maps from Carto-Craft (they are online).  I like to put a large map on a wall when I'm interested in an area, and then tape notes to all the properties/areas for info I've obtained.

The more info you have, the more comfortable you will be about making decisions.