Investing in Phoenix MSA remotely

[Account Closed]

Hi all,

This is my first post, I am excited to be part of the community.

A little about myself. I am an East Coast transplant living in San Diego, California.  After purchasing my first home last year, my wife and I have started looking towards purchasing additional properties for long term cashflow.  We are focusing on Phoenix due to the perceived strong fundamentals, diversified economy and relative affordability to purchase multiple assets over the next couple years.  Hold period should be a minimum 10 years, unless capital appreciation justifies selling :).  We will look to leverage a property manager once I have something under contract.

Here's what i'm hoping to learn. 

1.  Who should I be working with as a remote investor? ( I plan on traveling there once I have a plan in place) ( Local agents please feel free to PM me)

2.  What submarkets make the most sense to research? ( i'd like to find something relatively turnkey, cashflow positive and under 350,000)

3.  Is my budget reasonable?  My goal is to put down 20% and go conventional route for financing.  

Looking forward to hearing your replies!

[Alex Bacon]

Hey Greg, welcome.  I also started as an out of state investor from San Diego trying to investing in Ohio.  I basically jumped in head first and it's been a good ride over the last few years.  Here's a couple things I did which worked out well for me for not being from the area.  I jumped straight into Multi-family but I'd imagine it's similar with single family.

• Start looking at Redfin, Realtor, Loopnet, etc and go over the financials to start learning a very basic underwriting that makes seance to you and make spreadsheets, you'll eventually come up with one you like.
• Use sites like Zillow for previous sales and comps in the area, which is a little more difficult for multi-family but not impossible.  
  
• Once you're comfortable start messaging the realtors through properties that you're interested in.  I used this to call and "interview" a couple which I narrowed down to 2 or 3.
• Schedule a time to visit the city and meet up with the realtors to show you properties. This was my favorite part at the beginning for sure. I spent 3 days seeing neighborhoods, getting a feel for which agent I was more comfortable with, getting a feel of the people and seeing what best matched my demographic (Section 8, HUD, Students, "hipster", where the restaurants and bars are, etc). It was learning the area but as important getting to know the realtor/s so I knew they were going to try and find me what I was looking for and they knew I was serious. I did this 3 times on the 3rd I got my first property under contract. That one fell through but I already had my second under contract which ended up being perfect and has been a great investment.
• Bonus to doing this, when my current property became available the realtor I continued working with did a tour of the property with me through skype before I flew back out for an official inspection. 
• Lastly, I'd say figure 25%.  I used 25% for my underwriting, only needed roughly 22% but I ended up needing the rest for issues that came up immediately upon taking ownership. 

I'd just say, don't skimp on spending the money to take the trips out and really learn the areas.  

Enjoy and good luck.