Pinch Me - Numbers Always Seem Too Good

[Andrew White]

Howdy folks,

My wife and I are looking to invest a significant amount of cash in to out of state rental properties with a target of $115k/year in passive income. I got Mashvisor and love the analytics that it offers, as we're trying to hone in on an area to invest in. That being said, I'm looking alot at the St. Louis area, Texas in general(lots of family there), Memphis and Chattanooga and I feel like I'm missing something when I'm doing the analysis. I feel like I'm quite regularly finding on-market deals that look like they'd provide 15-25% CoC, especially in MO and TN.

Outside of hard numbers, what are the other key parts to deal analysis? I'm out of state, so I know that I need to build a team once I've landed on a region and am assuming a good realtor would help steer me away from issues with homes, so maybe that's the part I've yet to experience, ie; 10 homes have great numbers but 8 of them turn out to be duds or disasters once a realtor does a walk through?

Should I plan to make a trip to each of these cities to get a feel for the layouts and neighborhoods?

I guess I'm looking for some advice on pitfalls, because right now it looks, on paper, like I could be printing money in the near future (just kidding...kind of!)  Am I likely doing something wrong, or do I just need to take the next step and start engaging some boots on the ground?