Long Distance RE process flow

[Ken D.]

I'm looking to see how people on BP go about looking for property and conducting their due diligence before and after making an offer. I've purchased and read @David Greene's Long Distance Real Estate Investing (great book that helped me pull the trigger and set up my trial system) and listened to many podcast's but there are always more to learn when going through the actual process.

My current process is:

1) Analyze deals on paper and narrow down to a few to focus on. Do what ever online research I can do on the property to help with the assessment.

2) Have my agent take pictures/video of the property

3) Have a contractor take a look to estimate rehab (I pay for his time so he is willing to continue helping me)

4) Tweak numbers and obtain funds or preapproval

5) Make an offer

6) Inspections and secure funding

7) Property manager inspection

8) Close

So far this seems to work but I'm finding the process can become expensive and time consuming  if there are enough properties that don't close, especially when looking at properties that need work. Is this just the price you pay for long distance investing or are there more efficient ways to work through purchasing a property? Interested to hear what you guys do!