Solving problems with long-distance investing

[Amit Dhawan]

Hi Everyone, 

What are your thoughs on long distance investing - specifically what would you see as the biggest risks. For example, how important is having local eyes and ears on the ground before signnig the contract (commercial or residential) so you have a clear visual understandng of the site as well as the neighborhood. A lot of time google-map images are not recent. How about talking to local real estate agents to get first hand undertsanding of the area. I'm an investor here in Texas but would like to venture out. I'm also a programmer and as a part of addressing my concens with long distance investing, I'm looking to develop a portal/tool that can help other long distance investors as well. Your thoughts are highly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Evan Polaski]

@Amit Dhawan, the risks, to me, are many.  Even locally, I never had luck with property managers, I have had good contractors become bad contractors, any property I self leased my tenants stayed on average 3x longer than when I had a manager that handled leasing.  

Obviously, there are investors who have had great luck with it.  You will need a team, you will need to know your numbers.  Given my experiences, I would have a bench of people to call too, when your great manager is no longer a great manager, or handyman decides to move.

But as you build out professionals to help you invest from a distance: an agent that is helping find deals, a property manager to actually manage the deals, a leasing agent (this may be your agent or your PM or someone else), I would have a few contractors available too to keep your PM honest, lender, insurance, CPA, attorney.