That way your property search is more like a shopping list.

I can think of 50 reasons that  she verbally might have  agreed and then put off returning your calls, everything from being busy with the kids, to getting conflicting advice from family or friends, to just plain shopping the agreement. 

When you get to town feel free to contact me and we can meet over coffee or something similar.

:)Great question, in my opinion, you should pick your strategy, learn that strategy, learn the market, build your capital, build your team, then start shopping.

But in the day when I was doing 40 loans a month out of my shop we got appraisals of course..

In fact, in a lot of ways, it isn't specifically the fact that I was involved in real estate investing that was so alarming to him, the whole idea of investing outside of traditional blue chip stocks and mutual funds was completely foreign as well, and had I said that I was day trading Forex (I'm not, but know people who are successful doing so), had he the slightest clue of what I was talking about, he probably would respond in a similar manner as to what he did with my rental property business.And had I been interested in starting a sandwich shop for example, certainly that also would have caused a certain amount of discouragement from.  

it doesn't cost the investor any money or time to have you look for him/her.but still, in order to make good use of YOUR TIME, study your local market, set up shop, get used to looking at properties and consider some of the legalities - then go for it.bird dogging is appealing to the new investor because of the lack of risk...but it can also mean a lack of M O N E Ygood luck!

Our retail is really picking up as well, once Walmart came to town the main road in town started getting more traffic and subsequently a lot of shopping plazas were revamped.

Look for the average rents and then shop for houses where you find the rent is high.

If someone is really commited they could realistically find a seller-financed rental property and open a property management/consulting shop as well.Hey I might be a client or might sell my 4 unit brick all rented for a "motivated" price (95K), tenants pay ut-s except water.