I forgot to add that we are traveling to Charlotte and Asheville in July and will be going to a REIA meeting in both cities as well as meeting with a prospective real estate agent.

Either travel to the county and do the research yourself or hire a reasonably local abstractor or title company to help you out.

With that said I am struggling to find an area that I can travel to easily from NYC and get a good ROI.

Do you ever travel out to this coast?

It's still a major travel hub, has great schools, and a stable economy.What areas do you think are best for investing?

This property will need a total rehab because of the fire, smoke, and water damage. 

I do not really know much about New York since I am not much of a traveler that is from Texas.  

The challenge I'm trying to overcome is when I must travel for my regular job.  

Evict the current tenants legally, (we're on a month-to-month right now); rehab the place for 20k-30k and then decide to re-rent or sell.Pros:- I take best advantage of the properties new value and cash-flowCons:- I wouldn't be on site (since i live out of state) or if I fly over, it would cost a lot to travel there and miss work.- Risk of spending more money than we should rehabbing it (we haven't done a rehab of this caliber before).Option 3I can keep the current tenants and do land-lording the right way.

Then there's travel costs to and from potential properties.