Buy Rental Properties Remotely: To Travel to See or Not?

[Ryder Meehan]

Hi BP!

I live in San Francisco but have family in St Petesburg, FL involved in real estate where there market looks to have much better cap rate, investor friendly pricing and none of this California rent control hooey.  I own a handful of multi-family rentals in Dallas, TX so it's not my very first rodeo but I am still getting my chaps broken in.

My realtor in FL has scoped and sent photos of several properties that look great on paper from the finances - low price, high rental potential and favorable comps.  I'm at a point where I'm ready to start making offers but am a little uncomfortable going in site unseen personally.  A flight from SF to Tampa is around $500 and 8 hours each way plus I'm no contractor so don't know how much more I'll know than an inspector I could send.  Additionally, the best priced properties need some rehab before being rent ready.  So the questions I'm posing are:

1. Is it a good idea to buy rental properties not having seen them and being across the country from them?

2. Is it worth the $500 trip and several days trip to see them myself before making an offer?

3. Would the trip be better spent after purchase to manage the rehab and tenant leasing?  Maybe I really do need to make two trips?  I've got a day job so fitting these in are all weekend and vacation time.

Long term I plan to hopefully move to St. Pete once I have a nice portfolio there a couple years from now.  Until then, any advice would sure be peachy, ya'll.

-Ryder