Long-term, buy & hold is a great strategy - I've always been a firm believer that you have the upper hand with these properties in the investment field because you have the advantage of being first in an area then being able to wait for appreciation for whenever you want to sell "when the time is right".Often times, these rental properties also don't involve the full scale upgrades (less money out-right) that you would need in a traditional fix-&-flip in order to hit projected ARV's.The one draw-back here is out-sourcing your rentals to a property management company - which finding the right one for the right price can take some time to vet - or else managing the property yourself, in which case you will need to start building relationships with contractors to ensure proper repairs are being done and the needs of your tenants are being met.You can do buy & holds out of state easily, too, just find the right market that is land-lord friendly (for example, mid-west: Indiana), and I think its fair to say you could do well long-term with the right properties!

Even if you outsource the rehab, you will still need to make sure it's going as planned, follow up with contractors, etc. 

Turn key outsource all the work and use a realtor to make all your offers and to list the properties for you.

@Chandra Mcculloch are you planning to write all the 250-300 letters by yourself or outsource them?

They outsource to the nearest big town.

First of all you have to outsource the work, you can't do it yourself.

Forbes continues by providing two main reasons to not outsource property management: 1.

The Launder mat is currently outsourcing dry cleaning but possibly bring it in house in the future.

Consider outsourcing !!

I have problems physically and am thinking about outsourcing my meeting with sellers portion of my  business when it comes to walking properties.