Buying Site- and City-unseen

[Jeremiah B.]

So, my wife and I have run into an investing dilemma that we'd like to ask for some help on.

What are your thoughts on buying a house where we 1) have never seen the house and 2) have never been to the city? We would rely on the perspective of our Realtor and property manager, and do as much due diligence as possible online.a

Our local market (and any market that we are familiar with/close to) has a bad rent-to-value ratio making local investments have sluggish cashflow. However, we have a young family and are not willing to travel.

Has anyone done this? Anyone have any thoughts? Is the cash flow worth the risk?

[Dawn Anastasi]

Greg Hall obviously you need to have a connection and a relationship with whomever you are working with in your target city. If there is any unease at all in the relationship, do not invest.

If you have no idea what a "good" property would look like in the target city, how would flying there help that situation? It wouldn't.

There are people that put their entire retirement savings (which can also be certainly thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) in the hands of fund managers, without ever seeing them or even meeting them. However, they have trust in the company and their reputation to invest their money wisely.

The same is true with working with a partner or a team in another city. You don't necessarily need to meet them in person, but if it makes you feel better, then you do it.

I personally think it's crazy to "buy on the courthouse steps" because that's more risk than I'm willing to take. But other people do it all the time and are successful.

Everyone has different risk tolerances. Calling someone "insane" because their investment strategy is different than yours is not the answer.