Your strategy with a lender is going to be one of the key steps because once you get above 4 properties, it does seem to get tougher for financing.

It's a bit tougher out by us and heading east is doesn't get much easier outside of some older neighborhoods like Elgin, Woodstock etc.

While this will be much tougher to get started than if you invested locally, it is certainly doable.

@Anthony BrooksWhen I opened the thread, I sincerely thought this would be someone in a tougher market trying to run a big project at a distance (that's the typical thread of this kind).Bay City seems to be a very friendly market from a cost perspective.

It's tougher when there's partners.

I see you're in Lake Worth where they are equally, if not tougher, on people having these rear structures. 

They will walk over you...Retail rents are a lot tougher to track then, say, residential rents.

He probably wouldn’t be in that unit if you would have been tougher on him when he was late with the rent.

@Bryce Deeney  Based on my research so far, Phoenix definitely looks like a tougher market than some others for what I'm looking for.  

However, that isn't how you should be looking for comparables).If, however, the reason you are finding few comps is that the subject property is in a sparsely populated area, or one with extremely few sales, then that is a tougher situation.