Luckily my long commutes have been saved by the Picket Pockets podcasts and my free time spent here on the site and expanding my knowledge through reading.My goals are to be become a buy and hold investor while maintaining my current career so that in the future my retirement and income streams are not solely based on my job and/or equity investments.I do have a question that I would like feedback from the forum as I begin to formulate my plans in the near future:When we go to make the move we will have enough of down payment (20%) saved up for our primary residence and I project my investment property down payment (including reserves) will be realized in another 12 to 18 months.  

During the negotiations I spent a lot of time speaking with the seller about why he wanted to sell the house and it tuned out that unfortunately his wife actually died inside the property a few years back and after her death he moved to the bay area and "let the house go".  

I spent close to $10K in just traveling and paying fees for property tours (run out of Australia) I have traveled to North Dakota, Montana (saw the crazy rush with the oil boom and people sleeping in their cars) Michigan, Georgia, and Chicago.

That's not to say that all buyers who are leery about signing with you will go out and buy a house without you... however it can and does happen.If you've been in constant contact with them and have spent time (and thus money) on them, its time to sit down and talk about the agreement. 

Even if you spend 10k it will be money well spent!

If you know the area, you will know if that 30k is well spent or not. 

I got it for $12,500 and spent $3,665 in repairs to get it ready to rent.  

Here's the million dollar question… Do you know about what you spent per square foot?

They spent about three minutes touring the house and decided to pass because "the rooms are too small."

We went under contract on Friday and I spent this morning at City Hall's zoning department to find out what they had on it.