my san francisco home of ~30 years is about to close (under contract for ~$2M+) and i need to shelter about half for a 1031, since we rented the downstairs & the cottage. the SF home is ~95% paid off, so i'll have...

@Melissa Uppelschoten if a sewer is in the not too distant future you could go with an appropriately sized holding tank and maybe no leach field.

Careful here, return and risk go hand in hand...to get high returns you need higher risk. 6% return with NO risk is pretty good, so is think really carefully about paying that off, or putting down a chunk so you are paying more principal.And cash flow is different from total return, which you would only see at a distant exit.

.#3, If a RE company's primary business is sales, and they have a person acting as PM for your property while ALSO chasing big sales commissions, it is highly likely the commissions will come first, your property/tenant needs will be distant second.

That can be an effective strategy depending on how your portfolio is constructed and your plans in the near and distant future.

Google property Management companies in the cities you are considering purchasing in, do a thorough vetting on any you are considering, reviews, referances, BBB, courts/lawsuits, you can manage through Property management companies, I am old school but I have a friend who bought small investment properties in a distant place in upper NY and she never saw one property and does make money from these investments, she works through hr realtor, I saved her 10k after she was told that one property needed a new sewer line, I diagnosed it with her on the phone and she saved 10k, that is the downside of using these pm companies/anyone to work with properties out of town/remote ownership, I can do this as I have a full working knowledge of all systems in a house, I have been in this business for 25 years

I would say when you are considering a distant market, you need to establish a criteria on WHY you want invest, and does that market actually get you closer to the goal.

@Scott Johnson The seller was a distant cousin to the person that died.

"or consulate" Yes, there are no consulates in Colombia aside from one in a distant city, so I'll have to pursue Greg's advice. 

Unfortunately (or fortunately) there aren’t any foreclosures currently but that may be drastically different in the not too distant future. 11 duplexes with liens.Another approach would be to scrape the for rent add on Zillow, upload them to PropStream via their List Automator add on and then filter the results to duplexes.