Finding the Right Market - Buy and Hold

[Garrett Smith]

Still pretty new to this site and continuing to try and reach out to people and get to know this community. I'm looking to buy and hold long term, have some capital and the ability to tap into equity in a property I own as needed but Ideally, I'd like to purchase something with traditional financing and rent it out long term (open to SFR or Multi). Unfortunately I travel every few years with my day job so anything I do I will need to set up to manage long distance. Pros: Get to set up systems to be more hands off locally speaking, open to just about any market Cons: A bit difficult to develop a sense of the local areas, difficult to narrow down a market to grow in. A couple questions I had for anyone willing to provide their 2 cents are:

1.) Any insights/advice on how to narrow down a market - specifically to buy and hold I'd appreciate any advice. I'm looking at Boise, ID; Las Vegas, NV; Oklahoma City, OK and I've heard on the BP podcast some people delving into the Milwaukee, WI market.  I realize they all vary in location significantly but they seem to have a good price/rental ratio.  Currently leaning towards Oklahoma City and recently placed an offer that wasn't successful yesterday but already looking to the next one and meeting with a few agents via phone tomorrow to see if I can develop a relationship that will work for both parties.

2.) Any advice on managing from a distance?  I know a common one is to partner with someone and I'm open to that but seems like the buy and hold structure is a little more challenging to partner with someone

3.) If there's anything I can do to help in the community, I'm more than willing to jump in.  I have a background as a PM for a very large general contractor (mostly building bridges and other infrastructure work), and am well versed in high stress environments and managing many moving parts and pieces as well as tracking metrics for improvement.

Appreciate the help and if anyone has experience they'd like to share in the markets I listed above or think I should look at any others I'm all ears.  Excited to take the next steps and continue with my second property (first is in Seattle)

[Will Fraser]

Hey @Garrett Smith, call me contrarian but I'm going to do it:  DON'T narrow it down.   You've got a good list and diversification at scale is a good key to any and every investment endeavor.   Let's take Boise, OKC, and Milwaukee for example:  Assuming each of these cities are prone to being good for property owners, it would be ideal over the long haul to own property in three such diversified markets.  That way the winter storm that ravages Milwaukee doesn't affect OKC holdings, your OKC holdings don't toxify your Boise thing if the OKC market changes, and the new (fictitious) rental law in Boise doesn't destroy your OKC and Milwaukee holdings.  

It may take take to build to that, but you're laying the groundwork right now.  Fortunately the PM piece is fairly simple (especially when you have a solid team in each city, which you can borrow from the rockstars you work with in each place a la David Green's idea of the Core 4 from Long Distance Real Estate Investing

For my money I'd look to start acquiring in at least three different markets that you are keen on.