I live in California and bought my first buy and hold recently outside of Birmingham Al.

Can you carefully remove the grout along the outside edge and then finish it with a paintable caulking? 

I would never want to outsource that information outside the country.

Hello Number one Me and my wife are thinking about buying some land about an hour outside the city for our personal use and also maybe a business endeavor as well.

I work in outside sales as a 1099 worker.

The plow companies straight ignore calls and messages while they are scrambling to get their contracts completed.The real estate world up there has done a good job of isolating themselves from the flatlanders and outside businesses.

Risk-taker (You got to be willing to take chances when opportunities present themselves).Personality (in less you have a ton of money already, people will not enjoy working with an a**hole)Outside the box thinker (got to be able to see things that others don't see or not willing to try)Willing to learn (the ability to take good advice as well as seek information to advance your business)Committed (everything isn't going to work as planned so you got to be willing to continue to try)Know when you say no (you got to say no to bad deals and/or partnerships)Please fill free to add or critic my list as you see fit.

So I'm willing to buy outside of an area that I'm willing to live in. 

Although i believe if you're completely new and plan on contracting out most of the work, its more important to study the areas, network and vet your people than to worry about the WHERE - theres certainly upsides for focussing solely on markets outside your own, its certainly doable and a lot of people do it, even (or maybe especially) when your starting out, the added risk can be minimized and downsides you cant eliminate may be worth the upsides.

@Russell ThomasI would prolly run this information outside of quickbooks or an accounting software.