Teamwork and Long Distance Apartment Investing

[Ashton Levarek]

Do you live where you work?

We often get asked if we invest (i.e. buy real estate) where we live.

The answer to that is a resounding NO. We live where we want to live and invest where it makes sense. That is the benefit of investing, theres no specific place you have to live to create passive income!

My J-O-B no longer dictates where I have to live. I live in Oregon and my Partner/brother @Chris Levarek lives in Arizona but we invest in North Carolina, Ohio, and, depending how negotiations go - soon Texas. 

But also - I invest where it makes sense, and that is usually not where I want to live (at least right now). Why? Because markets vary from city to city, and even block to block, plus tenant/landlord laws, price point, competition, etc.

And we're able to do this because we have built a team and partnered with other professionals that enable this style of investing. We've built a team of partners that know the market, the asset class, that are professionals, and most of all - that we trust.

Over the last two years our team has grown from just my brother and I to multiple brokers, lenders, contractors, property managers, executive assistants, interns, asset managers, and so on. But I realize that every team is different. 

So where are you investing these days? 

Who's on your team that allows you to invest in this manner? And who did I miss?

[Michael Barnhart]

@Ashton Levarek that's awesome. More and more people need to realize that if they have the correct systems and processes in place it doesn't matter where you invest. A lot of people feel the need to physically see their property. I ask these same people if they invest in the stock market. If they say yes, I ask them if they travel to the company they invest in and walk around and get to know the management and talk with employees. And of course they say "No, that's silly." And I respond, "Then why do you want to do that with you real estate investments?" Most of the time they look at me like I'm crazy.