I'm not saying everyone can do it, or should, but if you have another area where you have contacts, or "boots on the ground" and know the area, or know someone that does, and you can build a team you trust, remote investing can and does work for a lot of people.On the flip side, if the answer is no to the above, then starting locally may be best for you.

@Sam Wilson  would be interesting to pull your new construction building permit numbers for greater Memphis.if there is no real production building going on.. that means existing stock is cheaper to buy than to build from ground up.

That way, I have already reached a middle ground with them and they don't see me as a hard nosed property manager. 

It's one of the best boots-on-the-ground references I've seen for us smaller DIY'ers.

He mentioned new investors who can't afford to have contracts written from the ground up for rehab projects.

Bryan not a chance.In some micro markets things have always been stable and have the least problems to work through and are the first to recover.This has already happened with markets that didn't experience much of a dip to begin with.With 700,000 properties of shadow inventory and 4 million more foreclosure filings in the works I don't think we are anywhere close to being out of the woods.What would create a partial turn around is if the interest rates started rising and went into the 6's.That combined with the summer months would make many buyers jump off the fence because of fear of not acting.That would make the banks release more property in slow waves and get rid of some of the backlog in many areas.Most home builders won't start new ground projects and get permits until they see the bank supply going down.They will just work on custom one off builds for buyers who have cash.In my market I think we are a few years off from recovery.

I actually have a deal in Mobile like that that I am trying to get off the ground where using the rental income on a 3/2 leased by the room nets an additional 40-50% monthly income after overhead.

A middle ground, based on more factors than whether or not a police officer can be hired who meets the bare minimum requirements at the lowest cost (minimum wage, particularly with this job market?)

Seems there should be some sort of middle-ground out there.

Ugh.Do you have grounds to sue for punitive damages, as the first buyer is essentially blackmailing you by not allowing you to sell unless he gets his EM back.