Out of state investing, travel/time investment with a job.

[Joe DeSimpliciis]

Hello BP! I'm new here and have a goal of making my first real estate investment by the end of 2020! Given the market in my area (SF Bay Area) I'm mostly looking at investing out of state. 

I work a full time job and was wondering if anyone could share their experience when initially investigating out of state locations/looking at specific properties. Manly in terms of the time management and flying out to the prospective cities.

For example...

How often did you travel to explore prospective neighborhoods?

How did you manage the budget for these trips?

How long do you stay for each trip? Does your job give the affordance to work remotely while on the trip?

Do you try/are you able to group multiple property showings together for a single trip?

etc..

I'm mainly looking to get an idea if the initial lifestyle impact I should expect when diving into out of state investing. I have David Greene's Long-Distance Real Estate Investing book on my reading list as well, but I want to hear what others have to say about their own experiences.

[Don Spafford]

@Joe DeSimpliciis Once you read DG's book it will help some to get over the fear of long distance. DG doesn't go to every property. I have bought a couple 4 plexes and commercial land in another state and have never been there. Find a trusted team in that area that can help. Good agents, PMs, and such and let them be your eyes. If you have family there to take a look even better. Now, however, if I were buying a multi-million property I probably would go there in person at least once before closing. But other than that I don't plan to ever go to those locations unless I happen to be passing through or going nearby anyway so that I can include part of the trip as a business expense.

Like it says in that book, my eyes aren't any better than the inspector's. It's not likely me seeing it in person will make any difference. Granted pictures can make a junk property look good, but that's why you get others to see it for you. For example, my wife is a Realtor and helps out of state investors. We walk the property and do live video feeds or at least take more pics and video to help those investors "see" the property as if they were visiting it without the need to actually be there. If you find a great agent that can do that for you, then you are off to a good start and saving your time and expense from traveling to every property.