Long Term, Long Distance Positive Cashflow areas in Florida

[Account Closed]

Hello everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.

I live in the SF Bay Area and have quite a bit of extra $$ and have high hopes for Florida properties long term to increase in value.
I am looking for one (or a few) long term positive cash flow properties. Probably single family homes 

Areas Im looking in are Clearwater, St Petersburg, Jacksonville and maybe Fort Myers, but open to suggestions. Looking at ~200k SFRs for long term rentals. The few I looked turnkey seem like you could get ~400$ per month in profit if you'd put 20% down. (so about 10% ROI on downpayment, counting property tax and hoi, not counting repairs or anything like that.)

I am a totally new to being a landlord so Im hoping to get a property management company, that could help me.

Now to my questions:

- What do you think are the risks to investing long distance with a management company? Are there any horror stories?
- Is the cashflow Im saying pretty normal for the area? Could I go higher? Is there any caveats I should looking out for?
- Any advice on the areas I picked? I have no idea what the areas are like. I've visited west Florida a couple of times and I've liked it, but I have no idea what the economy is like or where the jobs are at.

Thanks!

[Michael D.]

Hey, I personally do not recommend long distance investment but of course if you are well informed and work hard to make the best investments, it should not matter exactly where you are doing it from. The pitfalls were pretty well outlined above by Mr. Miller. Also, there are many inherent and unquantifiable benefits to investing in real estate near where you live. One example I can think of is if you live in a place and invest in it for many decades, you are more likely to know the people investing in your area, and are therefore more likely to find out about developments/opportunities before people who live in other places do. 

Of course advising people to invest only under their own hat so to speak is also too conservative. The technology exists for a reason. And we all know about scared money.

As far as other locations, I would throw in Orlando and the areas around it, specifically Lakeland. Lakeland is a huge industrial hub because it is less than 24 hours away from Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, and Atlanta. Many companies have transportation and processing plants in Lakeland, Publix is based out of Lakeland. 

Personally, and I'm heavily biased, but I would invest in South Florida if you can stomach the climate change issue. I mean who are we kidding? A lot of places in Florida are great, but Miami as a city is only 60 or so years old when you consider it was just a sleepy resort town until Castro took Cuba in 1959/60, now it's a legitimate global city and Ft. Lauderdale is growing along with it. Hispanics project to be the single largest demographic in the United States by 2060. Sure it is more expensive, but I bet people said the same thing about Los Angeles in the 40s or Chicago in the late 1800s when they were about as old as Miami is now. But I also love Orlando like I said, and would love to hear what other people have to say. 

regards,