turnkey vs. putting together my own team (new investor)

[Graham Dersley]

Just listened to the recent BP podcast about out of state investing (prices are too high in my area for good cash flow).   David Greene talked about finding a real estate agent, contractor, property manager etc in a town that you're interested in, and once you have a great team you can use modern technology to make remote investments.  

I've also been reading about turnkey investments, such as through a company like Memphis Invest.  This seems to involve less work, and it seems to me possibly less risky vs. somehow picking a bad contractor and getting screwed since I'm not able to be on site.  With of course the drawback of being more expensive, so less potential return?

Seeing how I'm new to real estate investing and don't have great prospects to invest locally, what do you all see as the pros and cons about how to get started with investing in rental properties in other markets?

[Jay Hinrichs]

This is all great talk and so forth but in reality and in execution this is HIGHLY risky and fraught with danger.. but here we go again a BP podcast and a bunch of folks who have no experience at this thinking they too can build a rock star team only to find out when they lose their butts that this is an advanced strategy for very experienced and well cashed up investors.

to do this and make it sound like anyone can build a rock star team there are a lot of folks that are going to jump in based on those pod casts and books.. and the next thing you will see is:

Help I hired this contractor in another state and he ran off with my money .. or the work wont pass inspection .. or my rock star realtor lied to me etc etc.

All I can say is in theory yes.. In practice CAUTION.

I have spent the better part of 20 years and a few thousand fundings in these asset class's and even the locals miss occasionally.. someone from out of state the risk goes up expononetially.

I am not saying you have to buy turn key .However I strongly disagree with the ease of building a Rock star power team..  I just do.