Sight Unseen Purchase!

[George Munoz]

Buying Investment properties online makes sense? Will you do it? What's your input? Have you done it? how is it working for you? 

Taking into consideration @Davidgreen book, Buying long-distance real estate investment. ( You kind of have to buy sight unseen) .

Do you have a formula that will cover potential errors or unforeseen circumstances? 

Can this new way of buying increment your business income and productivity? 

Do you think we have a lot of taboos with this particular topic in today's RE Investing Industry? 

Sorry to many questions lol , just curious : p

Thank you in advance for your answers...

[Will Fraser]

Hey @George Munoz!  This is a reasonable series of questions and ones that anyone considering investing in real estate outside of their immediate market should be asking.  

In my opinion there is a difference between "sight unseen" and never physically going to a property.  For example, if I (based in Oklahoma City) bought a house in Pheonix that has no pictures and I literally have not ever seen the house, then it is in fact sight unseen.  However, what happens more often is that I would have my agent or property manager walk through the home while I'm on a live video with them.  They would also send me pictures they take while they are there.  Then I'm functionally seeing the home AND seeing it through the experience of a local real estate resource.   This can function to fill in the gaps between what I have physically experienced with the home and can keep me from buying a house sight unseen, even though I'll likely never step foot in the house.

In fact, anytime I work with a long-distance investor in OKC I to a Matterport 3D tour of the property so that we both have a way to "visit" the property without actually being at the property.  This could be a good strategy for anyone looking to be "in the know" with their investments.

In general I assume a "oops/forgot this one" budget on every project, and the amount I assuem in that category depends largely on how many factors I don't know.  For instance, if I know the age of all the systems of the house and have seen and verified the condition of the foundation, walls, etc then it will likely be a small "oops" budget, but if I can't verify many of those details then I would want to assume a larger amount and hold more cash on hand for those.