Fire in a basement can travel through pipe chases and building voids so it can be difficult to determine the extent of the damage.

@Matt Daley Chasing a former tenant for unpaid rent is usually a good exercise in throwing good money after bad.

Also, if you can work direct, yes you lose the benefits of a mortgage broker, but if you're comfortable chasing docs and dealing with title, and property insurance yourself, you will safe yourself in some fees.

While I was driving for dollars I wrote down an address for a house and when I got home I found out that the house is owned by chase home finance llc in San Bernardino, the phone number I found wasn't the correct one.

In escrow on a property now through Chase.

You are chasing a unicorn get out and be glad the lesson learned was fairly inexpensive. 

@Chase Gochnauer what you described here is pretty standard.  

"Coast" investors are going anywhere and everywhere chasing yield it seems.

If you couple in forced appreciation in properties in such markets, then you get both short and long term profits.If you try to invest for both right off the bat, well that is a unicorn hunt as described above ... you are far more likely to find a snake oil salesman con man staple a horn on the head of a donkey and sell it off to a unicorn, and since you believe in fairytales you will believe him as he tells you whatever you want to hear just to make the sale.A skilled RE operator can make great profit in either type of market, but you give up too much control as a newbie going out of state, so your best bet is to work with the opportunities that your local market has to offer and learn to invest hands on and local rather than chasing out of state unicorns.Am I being too subtle?

Which is more than I need but I still enjoy the chase so why stop.