Secondly there is a ton of work out there so why take on the extra headaches?

Do the numbers work out?

We discovered what we wanted for our target market and demographic/property type and became very familiar with everything involved in making deals work out there.

And then they don't understand why things don't work out as expected. 

As we also know, Black Swan events like this can also force us to change the way we do things, and (spoiler alert) sometimes they work out for the best. 

It sure is hard to make anything work out there. 

If your numbers work out and you know how much you can bid to still make it work for you than yoi should always be ok with loosing out sometimes.

@Scott KrauseYou always have some more optimization of expenses and the benefit of area expertise buying locally, but if your area is very expensive like NYC then your cash flow likely will not work out (though I'm sure you can invest more for appreciation there).Investing out of state you have to put a lot of trust in others and you obviously have to pay for their help.

If you had discovered the damage prior to purchase, you could have made the Seller and Tenants work out repairs and then purchased the property after renovation.

I've learned about house hacking, using equity to purchase rental property, requirements with different loan types... but how did it work out for you?