Long Distance REI Starting Out

[Curtis Lipsey]

My wife and I are very curious about REI and we're starting to educate ourselves on the business by reading, and investing more time into BP resources. We are currently stationed in Clovis, NM with the Air Force but are wanting to invest long term in our hometown of Louisville, KY.

Is long distance investing to start out your portfolio something others have had experience with and/or would recommend?  Is it a stretch to make that a goal starting out?

[Ronald Allen Barney]

In my market in the Jacksonville area it's sort of "good news bad news".  The good news is I had found good mortgage and PM support to team up with me and provide 3 of core 4 competencies of a Core 4 practice.  And Jax has a LOT of rehab deals that the owner occupier market and institutional investors have passed up.  The bad news is I had yet to find a GC that will even answer my emails and calls or won't floor it in his truck when I try to physically track him down.  It seems to be an extremely undersupplied profession in this area, which would explain why all those rehab deals are being passed up.  If an investor could somehow move his own rehab team into the area he could be like a kid in a candy store, for deals.  A friend of mine is a GC in Northern California and I wasn't able to talk him into a move out here even for all the beer he could drink (and that's a lot of beer).