The first tenant to leave us with a $600 unpaid bill and we had no recourse but to pay it to be able to set up the next tenant opened our eyes to being able to see and control what is getting paid or not.  

Sure it's great to physically eye the properties, but you may be losing out on better deals in other states by honing in on just your turf.

I'm not completely sure whats going on but just reading this thread has been incredibly eye opening.

Luckily, you will probably be close and can keep an eye on it.

I'll keep an eye on your blog to see how your adventures turn out. :)

Of course, I always recommend that investors set their eyes on a property at least once, see the town, get a feel for the area.

And you can always give someone a rent discount for being your "eyes and ears" on the property, but that shouldn't cost more than a couple hundred bucks a month. reserves of $300/unit counted in expensesReasonable, but not an "expense," (i.e., shouldn't affect NOI/value).

One thing that caught my eye was Raw Land investing.

I also believe that I have to look someone in the eye and talk person to person before I start to  take everything they say as Gospel.

Or they might just start tearing down houses to avoid vacant houses or eye sores.