How do you choose a market when investing out a state?

[Mohit Madaan]

Say, you live in area where its impossible to invest locally for one or the other reasons such as local price too high, your state is nearing the peak (example - California) etc. Besides all the reasoning for not investing out of state, you still want to do it because you are confident or you just want to get in the game etc. The big question is how do you pick the market and that's what alot of investors are struggling with and here are few things i would like to discuss with you good people.

• Price point - say i have 250k for down payment and i want to start with a million dollar or so multi family with a price of about 25k a Door, i can obviously get rid of larger markets such as NYC, Chicago, Miami, pretty much most of the metros in the country
• Do you start building relations and invest in market where you feel you have strong 'Boots in the ground'
• Do you invest in area where you are most likely to visit for other purposes such as family, other businesses etc?
• Do you just pick a market based on your strategy (flipping, buy & hold etc) and then find 'boots on the ground'?

Please throw some light and give your 2 cents on such dilemna other investors are facing as well.

[Kathy Villagomez]

I'm leaning toward price point and where I can fly to within a reasonable time frame.  I've considered places where family are located however not good markets for me at this time. I'm also looking for a market for buy and holds as I can't fathom stomaching a flip out of state. Too much trust on a newly created team.