You will need to have it notarized, I believe; in my area, there are some notaries that will refuse to notarize a POA, so be sure to ask by phone if they will notarize yours before you waste any trips.

I learned VERY quickly that making a special trip out to the home for 1 tenant will lead you to a lot of wasted time sitting in your empty house.

I was told that many years ago, if you were looking to build a home in New York City, you would take a boat trip up the Hudson, and view one of several model homes built in...wait for it...

By the way, if your friends wants to own a ski condo, suggest that he look at Bend, Oregon.2 ski mountains, 2 more ski mountains in day trip distance.

I pay my dog sitter this way.My tenants have chosen to make the trip to my bank and deposit right into my account.

I wouldn't want to have an inspection and 12' down the camera guy say "well, that's as far as I can go, and you need to have the line snaked first, before I can inspect further." or "if you want me to snake it so I can see further, I will need to schedule another trip as I don't have my snake with me right now..."

We do make sure that the price for the repair is reasonable and we add a service charge of $40 to the bill for the trip charge of one of our repairmen.We are in GA, but we have a list of repair fees on our website: here's a link.

Is it worth the $500 trip and several days trip to see them myself before making an offer?

Before you go looking at the place in person you can look at Zillow and see just what the numbers look like and if it is worth taking the trip to see the house.  

After my trip to the Midwest and Western NY looking at properties...