Your spending all that time at the "place" because your paying all that money.

Better to spend a little here than commit tax fraud.

@Bryan Galaz the purpose of a HELOC is to use that money to invest, but you must be disciplined with putting the money back and not spending it on a vacation or expensive car. 

However, the time I could spend in Atlanta before buying might help me avoid headaches by getting to know the market even better than my research.I currently do not have an investor-friendly agent there, but I do have a real-estate contact here in Boston who lived there for 20 years.I am interested to hear your thoughts and what you'd do, if you were in my shoes.I wouldn't necessarily move to an area before I'd invest there, but I would spend a week getting to know the neighborhoods first hand. 

Either way (agent or investor) you are spending a great deal of time and money up front in most cases just to make a buck.

When I list a property I spend a lot of time ensuring that it's as attractive as possible in the eyes of investors.

You will receive most if not all your benefit in year 1.Year 1 is where you will spend money furnishing the house and potentially taking bonus depreciation via cost segregation study.Year 2 and onwards, assuming you got a performing asset is where things will reverse tax wise and you will likely be reporting positive taxable income.

I see flippers all the time that spend more than they thought, take longer than they anticipated, and sell for less than they hoped for.

Before wasting time looking for properties or spending a lot of time on projects, they should make sure they can get the financing because a) financing might not be available, b) they might not qualify or c) the cost of debt might be prohibitively right.Another mistake investors make is believe that they can apply a US strategy or financing model overseas.

Put the money into fixed income vehicles of various sorts and walk away and spend more time drinking wine and catching fish.