There's no doubt the Portland, Oregon market is hot right now and there are tens of thousands of people moving to the city each year.

There is a cost to servicing the loan and legal costs at the very least a couple thousand on top.  

Ideally I was hoping someone local would be available to set down face to face its my first time doing this and am just trying to be as cautious as I can thank you all for your help.Kane, the technology would allow us to do a 'face-to-face' even being thousands of miles apart by using google hangouts or Skype (if you prefer that over a phone call) :-)We can certainly arrange that!   

There are also pockets in the area where appreciation is possible, too.I've never seen the statistics published, but my guess is that there are thousands of own-of-town investors, many of whom are from around the world, invested in the Memphis market.  

You might not be able to buy in January, don't be in a hurry too mich, that is where you will make mistakes, a few hundred spent on inspections are well spent rather than a few tens of thousands for the wrong property.

For myself it is the fact that only one trader was convicted and went to jail out of the thousands of Jr. and Senior executives at the banks and securities firms who caused this calamity.

Lender legal for a local bank might be 3,000 and for non-recourse with  non bank lender can go into tens of thousands for securitizing the debt and selling it off.By the way non-recourse you still have carve outs on the loan for fraud, taking rent payments and not paying the loan, fraud, bankruptcy etc.

If you do nothing else with your license except buy your own rental properties, it will save you thousands in commissions a year. 

Al Florida and Shep had their office next to mine in Oakland it was funny to watch all those kids cutting and pasting  ( literally gluing the NODS to a big piece of paper.

(Literally 3 houses down) And knocked on the door.