If I were to looking to buy a property in another state where would I go to find reliable information that would tell me which direction the market is headed in terms of property value and rent?

I would expect a builder's grade carpet to be a little cheaper than that, but it's not horrible in terms of price.

I've tried to go into this looking at properties in terms of potential and cash, but the triple kind of overwhelmed me in thinking about what it needs.Thanks for confirming what I think I already knew.Thats the tough part about starting out.

You're buying without having seen the inside, and you have no idea what the house needs in terms of systems or structural repairs.

What are the implication in terms of control over my piece of the pie (e.g. can I be forced out for little interest, etc.)4.

Well, it's probably different for mortgage lending than commercial.When I looked at a PFS, I'm looking to see what it added in terms of adding strength to a guaranty.

It was doing so well in terms of rents and appreciation that we built 3 more.The vacation rental market fell off of a cliff in the Fall of 2007 as the price of gas climbed to $4 per gallon.

depends what you want each month in terms of cashflow...most here believe in the 50% rule and the 100/door profit per month...this will help you figure out your maximum monthly payment on a mortgage...then run that with a financial calculator to know your max offer...assume 100% financing so you're not paying for cashflow in the form of a downpayment...if you don't know what loan terms a bank would offer you, 20 year amortization and 7% interest rate would be a good starting point for calculations....so, if you have a property that you think will rent for 700/month, divide that by 2 for the 50% rule, and then subtract out your 100 dollar profit..the rest is your monthly payment....so....700/2 =350 350-100=250 using a financial calculator, for a 250/month payment at 7% interest, and 20 year term, your max offer would be 32,245....hope that helps

One of the "Profit Paradoxes" as I like to call them in terms of finding good, solid, cash buyers to work with has been this..."

Think of it in terms of accounting rules: Held-to-maturity securities are not marked to market but trading securities are - therefore Vikram and JScott are best served by incorprating market values and accounting for transaction costs to determine net realizeable proceeds.