For example, I can get up-to-date pictures of a property (with time stamp on it) for as low as 10$ in 24 hours, most of the time it is more expensive to grab your car and go there in person if you also count your time invested. there is a great book called "long-distance real estate investing" by David Green (you can find it in BP book store or on Amazon) which goes over a lot of those services and find solutions to long distancing investing.

@Tom Hall there is no magical solution that's going to bail you out of this:(

There are some attractive financing solutions available to investors with options available up to 85% loan to value. 

Did you find a solution yet?

Looking for a cost effective solution that looks nice and that would help sale or rental efforts. 

If you didn't have an actual solution to give of how to contact out of state owners living in NYC without my having to take a trip, why comment at all?

Overall, I would label it as steady and consistent.

If there is no solution other than "you take the risk", it seems this would be a death-toll to selling houses at auctions absent a huge bucket of cash to cover losses if they happen.  

Conversely, On homes I have wanted to expand,  I have removed closets from bedrooms in order to label these as studies or offices, so that I could build additions that are labelled "bedrooms" (customized to my needs),  in order to avoid the requirements of expanding a 2 car garage to a 3 car garage (a local requirement when building beyond 4 bedrooms).  

Explore other financing options or creative solutions?