My extensive real estate experience consists of 1 flip.I have an idea and I'd like to test the waters here in the forums.

Hello @Amanda Skipper,While there's no better way to truly get a feel for a market than by being on the ground and exploring the neighborhoods firsthand, I want to assure you that investing remotely is absolutely doable—and many successful investors do just that.In fact, I know several investors who have built substantial portfolios in Memphis, and they’ve never physically visited the city, and they've done so successfully by leveraging local expertise, market data, and a solid support network.

I have started soil tests on 12 lots costing me a total of $5340 for the permits.

I'm biased and can provide reasons and data to show that using an agent will protect you, get you more money, less stress and so on.The reality is you can do it yourself, but tenants generally don't cooperate with showings and that causes lots of problems for buyer to access the unit to show, inspections, appraisals etc.

Also, never listen to the sales people on their saving projection, I've yet see someone who does a good job of data analytics to truly project it correctly.

Due Diligence and Feasibility Studies - What studies or tests are essential before purchasing raw land?

They also don't know what happens after inspection, well and septic test etc and are often extremely difficult to deal with.

If they pass the personal smell test, I go to step 2.2.

Realtor.com has a lot of data on rent cost and housing prices. - What driving factors should I take into account when l'm looking for an up n' coming hot markets?

Then test the market and try to elicit tenant interest.