How does lending work when searching for out of state investment?

[Joe Matthews]

I’m looking at several areas in the United States to purchase a investment property in. Not knowing where I will end up buying is there a way I can get a mortgage pre-approval that I can use in multiple states? How does this work?

[Kenton LeVay]

May be tricky to get one pre-approval that will work across multiple states/markets. The reason for this is because the lender is ultimately buying real property and there are underlying assumptions they make that will vary by market. For example, a $600k property in Indianapolis is going to be wayyyyyy different than a $600k property in San Francisco. The price is the same, sure, but those two will operate totally different as investments. It doesn't hurt to ask, but I'd expect the lenders you reach out to to only be able to lend for properties within a single market.