You’d be shocked by how little actual screening many PMC’s do!

That property looks fantastic actually, I think sorting out the budget would be our biggest challenge.

I would actually recommend using the agent finder for the market your looking to get started in to find you an agent that specializes in out-of-state investors in your chosen market.

I’m going with him he has been doing this for many many years and trained some of these that are now mostly selling their courses versus actually doing deals. 

This is just expected, would think if it did not happen it's actually bearish news.

Investing in the right neighborhoods can increase your odds of success.Also if you look at the appreciation rate in Cleveland and Dayton over the past 10 years its actually quite similar to the cities of Columbus.But I do see your point of being careful in "declining population cities".

The biggest mistake I see out of state investors make is relying on others too much for direction and guidance instead of doing their own due diligence and building their own team that they actually meet and interviewRelying on one person who alleges that they have a 'team' built already that you can use as well can be a costly mistake.

They built out the infrastructure of the land in 2023 but never collected their applied for permits to actually build homes.

Third, if they have $2bn of agreements (whatever that even means) why haven't they actually started building anything or even closed on the land.  

I actually met with the agent directly as it was his childhood home, and he wanted to know who was going to buy it.