Seriously, it's free and you have nothing to lose.I'll never understand landlords who intentionally put themselves at vacancy risk instead of simply asking the tenants to pay more. 

Here’s why:1) Risk Reduction - for a typically small cost in terms of time and money you can gain a ton of context about an area and the surrounding areas that will help you to reduce the risk of getting into a poor investment2) Relationships - you can leverage your time there to meet with local market participants like property managers, brokers, other investors, contractors, potential tenants etc.3) Business expenses - you should be able to deduct the cost of the trip as a business expense4) Context / Perspective - you simply get better context and perspective by being there is personI don’t mean to say that you can’t do OK by investing remotely but I am 100% certain that you will get outsized benefits from visiting your assets periodically and definitely initially.When I invest in multifamily deals I always visit the area, the comps and the asset itself, this takes time but because we buy 100’s of units at a time it is an efficient use of time.I’d also be wary of anyone who isn’t personally invested in a deal alongside you telling you that you don’t need to visit, particularly if they get compensated by you making a transaction.Investing out of state allows us to find the best returns but don’t be mistaken into thinking that you shouldn’t plan on spending time in your target market.

I think that's BS and agents will find loop holes around it..  

Parents offered to go in on it with me but they do no have enough money that I could simply take the funds as a 0% interest loan...they need return too.

There's no better way of increasing your ROI than simply asking.If they have an issue with increased rent, then provide the notice. 

I can just go down the rabbit hole sometimes with all the great info/educational resources.

This a small West Texas community (Everybody know everyone) and there's simply not a hundreds vacant properties.

Originally posted by @David Krulac:@Steve Babiak I'm well aware that PAR is not the only State Approved Plain Language lease, but the op lease is not the only unapproved lease either.The Pennsylvania “PLAIN LANGUAGE CONSUMER CONTRACT ACT” does not require any preapproval of a lease; it simply states the requirements that must be met and that preapproval by the office of the Attorney General indicates that the language is acceptable.

I constantly warn people that there is simply too much risk for the average person in an auction: House full of mold, honoring the existing tenant’s lease, meth houses, current owner pouring concrete down the pipes to spite the new owner, evictions, finding out you just bid on an inferior lien (like you just did), municipal liens, back-due child support, IRS liens ... the list goes on and on.At least you only lost $16,000.  

In that case, you can simply have the account at a bank or brokerage where you will have direct checkbook control.3.