Maintaining Out of State Properties

[Jason Gatrell]

I started investing a year and a half ago and I now have several properties most of which I have never even seen.  I have single family homes, a small apartment complex and I am looking at a larger apartment complex.  I do have a PM company that fills these rentals, handles the day to day, etc....  My question is, how do you review your out of state properties for issues.  For example, how do you track the shape of the roof, find out about leaks under a window on the exterior side, or any other big issue that the tenant may or may not know about?  For a different example, I was looking at an apartment complex and they had a long time renter that had fish tanks, the inspection found that the whole floor in that unit was trashed due to the fish tank leaking and spills over the years that wasn't easily found via a walk through or HVAC filter replacement.  

The good news is my properties were all recently inspected so I feel good about them right now, but buying inspections every few years could really add up in cost and I was wondering if there was a better way.  I don't want them to get out of hand over the next few years.

Thanks everyone!