Go through the lending process of providing documents to the lender, work with an insurance broker to secure insurance for the property, connect with property management companies and choose one to manage the property, the appraisal will be completed, the down payment (20-25%) will be wired to escrow, close on the property and there you go, you are now the owner of your first investment property. 

While all that is in the works, we want to extend our network so we will be starting a virtual meetup in Maine next month as well.With all that being said, what do you guys think about branching out into another area so we have a bigger pool to choose from?

@Alana Reynolds In my experience there are really three ways to go about this, which one you choose will depend on how much effort and time you want to put into the process versus how much of the money owed you want to collect. 1.

@Joe Martella You obviously choose to cherry-pick which posts of ours you read or reference. 

Choose a path.When I started out I found a distressed property that was on market for months.

In general, apartments (condos) are generally cheaper to buy, but have lower rents, but have a larger tenant pool to choose from.

Depends on your situation which would work out best.On the selling side, again you have two main options, list for $1M with a listing commission % (of whatever you choose) and still offer selling agent commission as standard for your area, or option 2, list with no list commission and lower your price by the commission amount it would have been to attract more buyers at a "lower list price".I have done both and it was all situation dependent.

The thing I have found is that the buyer client focuses mainly on "lowest rate"...sometimes, they choose a large national lender that advertises on TV, or through their work (military), or some other outlet touting "best in customer service, etc"...In my experience, the large national lenders often slow down the purchase process, or get to a few days before closing and decide that "no, they don't intend to finance the loan because buyer has xyz in their history".  

It does make a lot of sense to choose quality over quantity. 

@Larry Lim JrCondo market is definitely getting more available, lots to choose from.