Even if a title company is employed to do that, they can't find everything. 

Turn Key with employment moving in to the area in finance sector.

View reportI'm closing on two duplexes in Charlotte MSA in a great area (population & employment growth, close to downtown, etc.).

The variance will be huge comparing something like SF to a smaller city with less employment.

@Sean Holland If you didn’t live in it, and you didn’t try to rent it out......then it is taxed as a Flip, which is not cap gains, but is ordinary income, plus self employment taxes.....regardless of holding it for more than a year.As pointed out, if it Were a cap gain, the cap gain amount is added to your income, to determine the cap gain bracket you would be in.

One of my requirements on a rental I have listed is 1 year of employment in current job.

@Rene Doyle a cursory look at wiki shows stagnant population since the 80s, 70k people which is quite small for the msa, no meaningful job growth, 3 primary employers in 2 segments, and a median income in the 30k range which suggests rents no more than 750mo. not favorable my standards but that doesn't mean there aren't good deals. a remote investor will have issues typically finding a great team in small tertiary markets like this. if you have inside knowledge that it's about to pop with a big employer then perhaps.

You need to remain at arm's length (eg, avoid any possible conflict of interest with the tenants such as you are an employer and the tenant pools are your employees), you don't live in the area, you don't have the time to manage the unit, or you simply don't want to manage it.

Employees trade our services in the form of work to our Employers to produce goods (or services) which they trade to other businesses or customers.

My wife is employed full time and makes about $75k a year with pension and benefits.