Good Idea or Bad Idea?

[Christopher Hamilton]

Hello. My wife and I live in the Silicon Valley and as I'm sure most of you know, house prices here are astronomical. We tried for a while to purchase a 1br condo in the $400K range but we were routinely beaten out by all-cash offers and folks willing to pay way more than we were. For us, it's more cost effective to rent here for the time being. We have been doing a lot of traveling lately and I like to look at real estate wherever we end up just for fun. I happened upon South Beach Miami and noticed condos there for right around $150K or so for a 1br. I had the idea that maybe we should purchase a property there and rent it out to someone (either LTR or STR) just to build some equity. In my head this makes sense as whoever rents the place would essentially be paying it off and we could definitely afford to put 20% down. Thoughts?