I would rather build my own rentals tham buy them.

Never seen one  If our area there are a lot of the 30,000 houses, most of the 20k-30k houses are bought by local landlords, or investors and as to the out of state guys for 40-60 and they try and manage them for a few years and then try and  sell them after they get fed up tryi ng to manage them from a distance, most management companies do not like to manage that price range of properties and the tenants they typically draw. 

By far my biggest concern is the difficulty of managing properties from such a l-o-n-g distance.

Originally posted by @James Ng: nice shortcut that I can do in my head x50Yeah I thought the same thing.

@Crystal Ng, I currently invest in Vegas and I'm also from California about 30 mins from Modesto.

I'm looking for something that could be beneficial in helping)ng him further his business and end goal which is to build enough cash flow to quit his job and doing the real estate investing full time (typical BP goal right :) )He normally does flips and has some buy and holds.

@Cin Ng   federal tax liens sunset after a short period of time I personally never let those bother me.. if your a true cash buyer.. now if you need to refi right away this is an issue.I have never had IRS redeem and if they did they owe you statory interest.. but if you rehab the house past what is necessary for health and safety they don't have to give you those dollars back.. the real crux of the matter is if your honing in on ONE property the chances of that ONE property actually going to sale are not that great. those in the business track ALL sales in a particular county and will go to the sale with the mind set that they may get one of the 20 that are going that day.

@Rich Ng - Great idea.  

Cynthia Ng good info!

Now, of course that is based on the awful reputation that F%^&NG has gotten due to some of the clowns who've produced awful homes that were sold and that made life a living hell for the buyers, than simply on the term "F#$P", but that term is so loaded now, I truly think it needs to go!