New member from California, looking to invest long-distance

[Jeremy Hicks]

Hey everyone!

My name is Jeremy, and I'm a Silicon Valley start-up veteran looking to transition into real estate within the next year. I'm currently reading BiggerPocket's "The Book on Rental Property Investing", and I'm using the rest of this year to learn, save, network, and develop a sense for deals to begin executing on next year. I'm looking to invest in the southeast US, plus my hometown of San Antonio.

I can't wait to interact with everyone here, to learn, grown, and hopefully, in some fashion, provide some degree of value to some of you as well.

Thank you!

[David Faulkner]

If you want to invest in, say, San Antonio, then the best advice I can give you is to move back there first. There are so many major advantages to investing locally, and on the other side of the coin are so many disadvantages to trying to do it remotely, that it is inadvisable IMO for a newbie investor. Besides, you are already in one of the most profitable REI markets in the entire US, just have to learn how to invest there locally, and there are plenty of great local mentors (many on BP) that could help you with that. I've invested both locally in SoCal and remotely in Phoenix over the past nearly 15 years, and I've sold all my Phoenix property and kept all my SoCal property, so I speak from personal experience.