I was speaking very generally about the asset class in my area and whether you should devote time and energy search/marketing for these types of assets.

Her entire practice is devoted to short sales.

"Each year we plan on devoting resources to improving the quality of the property to improve the quality of our tenants lives."   .. maybe even state your plans next year, and also within 5-years, so they have an idea.2)   Give the option to leave, if they feel they chose your property based on it having XYZ, and it wasn't in the lease, give them the option to break the lease for free.  

I love their devotion and motivation to educate themselves, but I try to encourage them see other options to expand their opportunities.Well that is just my 2 cents.

Thats why I've devoted my life to it....there are a million ways to make, (and lose....) money in this career.

In my opinion, there are at least five huge factors in determining whether or not you should go out of state to invest.1) Your investment objectives.2) Amount of capital you have available.3) Your desire & willingness to be involved, in day to day, hands on investing & management.4) The time you have available to devote to investing & management.5) Experience & ability to establish & maintain systems for oversight of your investments.If it is tough for you to find a good deal within a 2 or 3 hr. radius, it may not necessarily be geography that's problem, it may be the deal finding strategy that needs some fine tuning.

The points I make are probably less relevant to full-time real estate investors who have more time to devote to property/tenant management.

It might be better to just walk away instead of devoting more of your time.  

I am sorry the the ones with more knowledge do not have more time to devote to answering questions but then as some pointed out there are approved methods of gaining the basics.

I am also in the mortgage business and have been in the process of opening up a whole new department devoted to foreclosure bailouts.