That way you can make a quick trip to the property whenever needed and spend no more than 4-5 hours traveling back and forth on a single day.For Bay Area Investors, that basically leaves you with Sacramento and Stockton for driving distance (there are other options, but that's where you'll generally see the best returns) and either Las Vegas or Phoenix Metro for flying (less than 2 hours).Wherever you decide to invest, here's the two main things you're going to need:1) Knowledge of the Market: Just google "(name of area) real estate" and read every single news article on it from the last 3 years.

The purpose of my trip is actually two-fold - I will be spending 2 days purely for leisure doing some sightseeing and I will have 3 days with property visits and meetings.

I’m definitely planning on making a trip down and checking the area out!

My son is doing a 10-day leadership trip in the Adirondacks that will be leaving from Gordon.

@Sam Hanaa If you think ON and QC are bad, I would suggest taking a trip to BC.

@Tammy Graham Not an accountant here, though have talked lots about this with our accountant and lawyer  and other pros to make sure we get this rightThere are a few bars to cross to change rental income/losses from passive into active so and its very easy to get tripped up. 

Take a look at demographic data and consider a road trip!

We will be in the area September 7-12th for our "house hunting trip"... most of our research so far has been done online via Redfin, Zillow, Craigslist, and we've been given access to MLS alerts through a couple people we've met networking.

Choice questions can trip up a fake landlord pretty quickly.

I typically make a trip back to look over the properties myself, but she could literally just send me the listings and I could pick one out.