Easily the difference between getting referrals for new clients and getting unfavorable reviews.I also do respectfully disagree with the idea which many here echo'd that there's 0 benefit to a PM when owners property appreciates....when properties are worth more they rent for more, and PM's will earn higher mgmt fees and higher placement fees all while providing the same exact service. 

Out of state investing is great, however everyone out of state is incentivized to take money from you hence if you are not experienced or know what you are doing, people can easily take advantage of you.

Win-win, my brother got a place to live, and I got a good ROI on my investment.

Hey @Matthew Samson, regarding "figuring out the financials" for 0-5 small properties, you can do this easily yourself just using excel or another free method.

However, having an organized set of books in QuickBooks will allow you to more easily answer questions outside of your day-to-day operations, like "how much will I owe in taxes this year?"

Small Claims Court is also good, pro is you get an enforceable judgement so if anything is unclear such as damages amount that will be determined, cons are time and expense involved and once you win the big challenge is enforcing the order.  

Before the crash, it seemed like you couldn't get the numbers to work that well in terms of cash flow but you could find deals here and there and the financing and appreciation was definitely there.During the bust you could easily find discounts but the financing was impossible to get and the rental profits were extremely tough and thats even if you self managed. 

We've been honing in on a pretty good development/investment formula that is working for us where we buy an existing single or multi-family house that can be improved or easily split into smaller units, and then we also add small new construction units to the property (townhomes or duplexes or cottages) and, generally, we rent them all out (though we have sold a couple of single family rehabs and we may sell the units in our next big project...

That's how you win their hearts and make them see you as the ultimate investment partner.

With OOS investing, make sure to work with someone who has your best interests at heart and can easily plug you in with their network of lenders, PMs, and GCs to be able to build your core team.