Throwing a dart at the map in a market you don't know intimately and putting your money in the hands of complete strangers thousands of miles away seems like the greater gamble in this situation to me.

I'm not gambling on appreciation, but I do assign a value on the benefits of owning and holding real estate outside of cash-flow as well because there is a value there and it isn't the same in every deal.

Most of the existing tenants have chosen the direct deposit route, so there is no question whether their funds arrived on time or not.Our new leases contain late fee provisions, and we quickly trained the existing tenants that the late fees in their original leases meant what was written.

I have chosen this as a career path.

I'd Rather go to Vegas and get a good meal and entertainment if I want to gamble ;-)Jim

It seems like he’s saying do your research, network from a distance as much as possible, go out to your chosen market and get things under way/systems in place and once those connections are made you should be able to replicate from a distance.

others would be wiped out.all because they sold or did not want to buy lower yield.. chasing yield is gambling as much as those that say buying for appreciation is gambling.. probably worse actually.. 

Truly passive investing (i.e. buy, keep, collect profits) would probably best come from a carefully chosen mixture of small and mid cap mutual funds. 

The advantage of learning about the field in which he has chosen as his preferred career path.

If he's painting state in the contract paint color to be chosen by homeowner.