First Property, Local or Remote?

[Eagle Yeh]

Hi,

I am looking to pick an area to start my first investment property. I live in Greater Toronto Area in Ontario and looking to invest around Hamilton, London, Waterloo/Kitchener area.

However, housing price there is around 500-600k for single-family homes. I will need 30%+ down to possibly break even on cash flow. Alternatively, I could go further (Sudbury, Winsor, or even cross-province to Saskatchewan/Alberta) to find <200k properties.

Question to my fellow BPer and experienced investors. As my first investment property, do you recommend starting somewhere local that I can visit when needing to? or do you have success stories to start remote with property management as long as the cash flow works out?

Thank you,