If you have boots on the ground they can take photos and video of what you need to see.

(I should note that I live in Japan so buying a house and living in it is not an option for me.)Sincerely,Cory Ballantyne you're gunna hate me for this, but I wouldn't consider buying in America, from japan, for your first deal, unless you had in the range of $75-$100k. when you invest locally, you can get low down payments and house hack, you can drive to see properties, you can go to investor meetups and pick peoples brains, and you have the luxury, if something goes wrong, of seeing what went wrong and even going in and picking up tools yourself to save on labor if absolutely necessary. from japan, you will need to fly to see any property you hope to buy, probably have trouble meeting up and networking, and everything will have to happen with boots on the ground financed out of your pocket.

So do your due diligence and make sure that the strategy you know works in California will work in other states as well.If you don't know the area, here's what you'll need:A local real estate agentA loan officer licensed to originate loans in that stateA local property manager (they should have repairmen, contractors, etc. contacts for you)It works best when you have local "boots on the ground" so to speak, meaning friends or family members who can keep an eye on the property for you... which your property manager can do for you, but for a fee.I would recommend reading BiggerPocket's book on long distance real estate investing for a ton of other tips as well: https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/long-distance-real-estate-investing-ultimateIf you have any questions about the Phoenix Metro Area market when you're considering which area to invest in, feel free to reach out and I'll try to get your questions answered or point you in the right direction!

@Michael Randle, surplus means nothing, if you don't have a good boots on the ground team, you will lose all your income anyways, good luck.

Interested to hear ideas regarding how to structure a partnership correctly so it is win/win for both sides.We are young and able to act as the "boots on the ground" to handle all the day to day operations of the property, including management/tenant issues/repairs/etc but we lack the necessary capital to get into some of the deals we want.

My mother is being my boots on the ground for this one, and she’s pretty confident in selling for 165-180k with this square footage and area.

I'm a (new) real estate agent based in NWI (Northwest Indiana), so if you're ever looking for boots on the ground in my neck of the woods, I'd be happy to help.

Now that sounds exciting and a pretty good business/investing strategy to boot. 

I'm currently looking in Jacksonville Fl area but open to other emerging areas where there is enough listings worth a boots on the ground visit.

So I focused hard on what I could do (educating myself, boots on the ground going after it, networking) and found a partner to do what I couldn’t (funding).