How to Buy Your First Out-of-State Real Estate Investment

Dave:
You could still invest in real estate even if it’s too expensive where you live buying properties hours away and managing them long distance may sound intimidating, but this is a tried and true strategy that investors have successfully used to build wealth for decades. Today we’re going to explain how to pick a long distance market, the steps you need to take towards actually going and pulling off an investment and some very common mistakes that you can take some care to avoid. Hey everyone, it’s Dave here from BiggerPockets. We’ve said it for a long time that investing where you live is probably the best way to invest for most people. If you live in an affordable market, that’s still true, but with prices rising in so many markets out-of-state, investing at least I believe is becoming a somewhat necessary and good opportunity for the majority of people out there.
And I don’t see this nearly as a challenge. Like I said, I think that there are a lot of financial benefits and opportunities for return by choosing to invest in a different market. You can basically hand pick any place in the whole country to invest that perfectly matches your strategy and your portfolio, your price point. You just have to follow some basic best practices and today I’m going to share some of those best practices that I’ve learned from my own experiences investing in different markets, and I’m bringing on a very experienced long distance investor, Kathy Fettke as well. Kathy, thanks for joining us.

Kathy:
Thanks for inviting me.

Dave:
Well, happy to have you here. You are sort of the prototypical long distance investor, right? Living in California, super expensive. There’s ways to invest in California, but I know you personally have chosen to invest a lot out of state. Can you just tell us why you’ve been doing it?

Kathy:
Yeah, absolutely. When I first learned about real estate investing, I interviewed Robert Kiyosaki and he talked about cashflow. Of course, many people know that’s his theme and that was just not something we understood or knew about. In California, most people kind of fed their properties. It costs you money to own it until over time you’d probably make a lot of money on it. But this idea of cashflow was so intriguing to me and at the time Robert Kiyosaki had said he was investing in Texas because of the affordability, but also because of job growth and population growth to that area. A lot of migration. This was 20 years ago that I had to dive in and learn it.

Dave:
That makes sense because California was still expensive 20 years ago, but a lot of the rest of the country, I started investing in Denver 15 years ago, but you could find cashflow there. Now that market super difficult. I haven’t bought a cashflowing rental there in quite a few years. I’ve moved on to other types of markets and I get a lot of skepticism about that to be honest. When I tell people that I invest out of state, and it was intimidating, but I think the inevitability of the current market is that more and more people who recognize that real estate is a good asset class are just going to have to do this if they want to prioritize cashflow over just pure appreciation play. Do you agree with the hypothesis that this needs to become more commonplace for more people?

Kathy:
Well, real estate cycles, it’s just how it always has been. And we’ve seen prices go up for a decade, so a lot of people have only seen really one cycle, but generally when things become more affordable in expensive areas, and that could be because of low interest rates, it could be because of a housing crash, people tend to want to buy in populated, popular areas like California when it’s affordable and there’s tiny little pockets when that’s true. Like 2009, you could buy a $50,000 condo in the East Bay of San Francisco

Speaker 3:
Or

Kathy:
In Riverside. It was cheap. Then when things get expensive and today this is the cycle we’re in, we’re in a high interest rate, high price environment, then more and more people are forced to go look elsewhere. So when I started, it was 2005 easy loans was driving prices up and because they were artificially keeping the rates down, we were seeing prices go up dramatically. I think in 2004, California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, in some areas prices went up 40% in one year. So that just made no sense and that’s when I interviewed Robert Kiyosaki and I was like, what? I can buy a brand new house in Dallas, Texas where it has the strongest job growth and population growth in the country and it’s only $145,000. It was shocking,

Dave:
And I think that’s super appealing. I mean, it offers an opportunity to get in at a different entry point. I can’t say better, but if you’re living in an expensive city where the median home price is 500, 600, $700,000, there are places where it’s still three to 400,000, which is still under the national median. It’s expensive, don’t get me wrong, I mean compared to last years, but still offers that affordability so people can sort of get into the market and in my opinion, gives it more potential for upside. I worry a bit about these expensive markets that they’re sort of reached the limits of affordability and why personally I have taken more to investing outside of Denver and Colorado where I got started than in Colorado at this point.

Kathy:
And that’s what happens. There’s affordability limits like you said, and you find out that you’ve hit that when sales slow down, when you start to see price reductions, when you start to see increased inventory, and that’s what we’re seeing.

Dave:
I think the reality is that out of state investing, it makes sense on paper, but there is this sort of emotional fear component. I’ve had it too. There’s no judgment here. It’s kind of scary to try and buy something that’s an investment but is active. You need to take care of this thing and you’re going to be super far away from it. So let’s just talk through. I want to spend the rest of this episode just talking through the logistics. You’ve been doing this longer than I, you’ve helped a lot of people do it. I’ve done it a bit and I just want to share with people the tactics just step by step, what do you do to go invest out of state? So what do you recommend first finding a market?

Kathy:
Well, the first thing I just want to address is that fear is a good thing. I know that’s not necessarily what people say, but because people are like, oh, analysis paralysis, and you’ll never make a decision if you listen to your fear. My husband, rich actually wrote a book on this called Extreme Success and it was based on how he jumps off bridges and does extreme sports and the courage he needs for that. And it really came down to our fear is there to protect us and really if we can listen to it, it will give us the answers we need. So I understand it’s scary and it’s scary for a reason because you could lose money, you could trust the wrong person, you could invest in the wrong part of town. You could have a bad property manager in place. You might not know the rules of the area. So listen to the fear, it’s going to protect you, but don’t get that paralysis like I was saying, let it tell you what the next step is.

Dave:
That’s such a good point.

Kathy:
Yeah, yeah, it’s like I don’t want people running out and you and I see it all the time. Somebody will say, Hey, I found this property online, it’s a hundred thousand dollars and I’m going to get it because cheap. And we’re both like, no, no, no, no, no, no. There’s so much more you need to do besides look at the price of a property. So let’s start there. And generally fear is a result of lack of education and information. So the first thing I tell people is you need information. And for me it was a matter of getting on an airplane and going, I got the tip from Robert Kiyosaki 20 years ago. He was investing in Dallas, so I got on a plane and I went to Dallas. Now, not everyone does this, but it’s what I needed.
I needed to immerse myself in that market. So I understood it and I quickly learned, I’ve told the story before, I just kind of went out and found an agent and that agent took me to a part of town that was very expensive, probably three times the median home price of the area because she saw dummy on my forehead like, oh, you’re from California, you’re not going to know anything about this area. And I knew enough to know that a $400,000 property in Dallas was cheap for California, super cheap for California, but very expensive for that area. The median home price was one 20 at the time. So that’s the first thing is understand what’s the median home price. It’s kind of like when you travel, you want to know what’s the exchange rate or you’re going to get ripped off. You just don’t know. So just kind of starting there and getting some metrics of, and anyone can, you could look it up online. It’s easy to find the median home price, just Google it

Dave:
And

Kathy:
That will at least keep you out of trouble a little bit.

Dave:
I totally agree. I think it really gets you over that fear is going and just seeing the place for yourself, and we’ve done a lot of episodes, a lot of videos on BiggerPockets. If you need help figuring out what market to invest in, you can go to biggerpockets.com/markets, look through your feed, look on your YouTube channel. We have a lot on the logistics, what metrics you need to look at, but I think when we’re just talking tactics today, first step, what I recommend at least is narrowing it down to two or three markets that you’ll like strong fundamentals, good job growth, demographics, places that are in your price point and then go visit them. And I know that that is expensive, but it is a hundred percent worth it and you’re going to net a higher return on your investment if you actually go and do this and spend that money.
I’ve probably looked at half a dozen or a dozen markets that I thought I would invest in. I went in and I decided not to just because it just wasn’t the right vibe for me. And although I bear that expense, I’m super happy that I didn’t invest in most of those markets. There are a few that got away, but yeah, me too. I’m happy with most of those decisions and at least was able to put the face to a name. It’s the same thing when you meet someone. If you only meet them in Zoom, you can’t have the same relationship as if you meet them in person. It’s kind of looks the same thing when selecting a market.

Kathy:
Yeah, there’s a feeling everyone has their strengths. Some people are super analytical, they like numbers. I’m a sensory person I guess you could say. So I do need to feel it. I need to go there, know where the downtown is, know where the hot parts of where everybody likes to go out and so forth. What are the freeways? Where are people in that metro area wanting to live? And that can take a weekend unless you know somebody already, they could show you around and cut that process down. But for me, I didn’t have anyone when I first started. I found quickly that working with a real estate agent with no experience in investment property is a mistake. Too often agents will just guess on what a house might rent for because they don’t know

Dave:
Totally.

Kathy:
So making sure if you have an agent, they specialize an investment property and hopefully they own it. I mean that would be the best of both worlds is they own investment property, they’ve done it, they know where people are wanting to live and what the rental rates are in those areas. So I pivoted. I just remember asking myself, okay, I just figured out I can’t trust this agent. Who can I trust? And that’s when I just started calling every property manager I could get my hands on and going into their office to meet with them. Many of them would show me a map and they’d be like, this is where we’re getting most of the calls. And I would say, what would you buy being the property? What would you buy that you could manage easily? And they’re just a wealth of information because they’re stuck with the property, right? They’re going to have to manage it. They don’t want to get you junk that they can’t rent out.

Dave:
Totally. I completely agree. I want to come back to that idea of a PM first, but just for everyone remembering the logistical steps here, I think we might’ve forgotten something saying pick a market and go there, but I would say pick two or three markets. Next step is to line up these meetings that we’re talking about.

Kathy:
Yes.

Dave:
So line up meetings with multiple real estate agents. Ideally have conversations with them first. Don’t have the first call, the first contact, be in person. That could be a waste of your time. I would say pick three to five people, agents, three to five property managers, call ’em all before you go there and then pick one or two of each that you feel pretty good about. And then lineup meetings. That’s at least what I’ve done in the past
And I find it to be super helpful. One, you’ll get a vibe, but two, compare and contrast how different levels of service, different perspectives on the market. Personally, I am very analytical and I’m in general an optimistic person, but when I come to underwriting deals, I want the most pessimistic person on the world telling me what to do things I want my PM to be like, the rents are low. Maybe you can get ’em up a little bit. I like to see someone who thinks about investment and risk in the same way that I do, and some people are overly optimistic in my opinion, or base their numbers on red growth or home price appreciation on the period from 2020 to 2022 and they’re like, Hey, look, properties went up 20%. They’re going to keep going up that rate. No, they’re probably not. And so looking at people who have the same perspective is going to be really helpful.
And like Kathy said, I personally don’t even like to lead them. I’d not like, Hey, I like this neighborhood. I’m analytical, so I look that up ahead of time, but I let people say to me, I say, where would you invest if you were me? What’s the move? And I literally say that to people and I have them show it to me, and if I buy it, I’ll work with them. If I don’t, then it’s time to move on to someone else or pick a new market if you don’t buy anything that anyone in that market can offer you.

Kathy:
Yeah, yeah, I mean all of that is so true. At the end of the day, you’re dealing with salespeople and you just have to know that if they’re really desperate for a sale, they’re going to make everything sound good, but if they’re experienced and really care about your future, they will talk about the downsides along with the upsides. Someone who doesn’t understand investment property is just not going to understand those types of things. Maybe the area they show you is great for a homeowner, but maybe not so good for an investor. That was kind of the case with me on that first agent.

Dave:
Well, we’ve talked about the first step is sort of narrowing down your list, scheduling a visit, orchestrating the right people to meet with. We do have to take a quick break, but when we come back, we’re going to talk about what comes next on your search and execution on investing out of state. Before we go to break, I want to thank our sponsor, reim for the previous segment. Reim is the all-in-one CRM built for real estate investors. You can automate your marketing, get skip tracing for free, send direct mail and connect with your leads all in one place. Head over to reim.com/biggerpockets now to start your free trial and get 50% off your first month. Alright, welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. I’m here with Kathy Feki talking about how logistically, tactically, step-by-step you invest out of state. So far we’ve talked about narrowing down your markets, going to visit them, who you should talk to while you’re in those markets. Kathy, let’s just assume you find one, you go to two or three, you find one that you like. If you have a good vibe on what comes next, how do you actually pull off buying something?

Kathy:
So once you’ve found your market and you found your team, there’s more things you need to understand. Obviously. Let’s just do a basic one, property taxes, getting that proforma out and not just understanding price points of the area. I mean, that’s first you need to understand median income, median home price of the area. Next step is all the other details on that proforma, right?

Dave:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think the step for me that comes once you pick a market or even if you’re narrowing down the next two, is sort of what is a good deal in that market That comes down to one, talk to your agent, talk to your property manager, figure out how you’re going to get deal flow. You need to start looking at a lot of deals and to Kathy’s point, then you need to stress test your assumptions, put in different numbers, figure out what rent growth is really going to be, what are your taxes going to be? What is your insurance costs? The big ones that you really I worry about are one is appreciation assumptions, rent growth assumptions and expenses, and that’s sort of the art to investing anywhere. This isn’t just true out of state, this is just true of underwriting deals. Do you have any recommendations for how people get comfortable underwriting an out of state deal?

Kathy:
Again, to me the property manager is the biggest help there on helping you plug in the right numbers because a salesperson might skimp on some of that stuff. So getting as much information as possible on what the real costs are going to be, age of property and condition of property is something people miss so many times.

Dave:
If someone’s investing for out of state and it’s their first investment ever, do you recommend? I probably would just skipping a renovation, trying to buy something that’s turnkey. It feels like a lot to take on new market, first time investing and a renovation. There’s a lot of moving parts there if you’ve never done it before.

Kathy:
Oh, absolutely. I mean your first investment property and sometimes people’s first property ever is their first investment property, so there is so much to learn in that first transaction. Make it easy for you. Just even the process of getting loan and getting insurance and interviewing your property manager. These are big deals, so just keep it simple. A newer home would help an area that has A or B class. Schools generally families like to live in areas with good schools and they’ll tend to stay longer if their kids are happy in school, they don’t want to move their kids too much, so you might not be getting the best deal ever, but you’re going to get a safe one, a good one by just don’t go into those high crime areas because the price is low and you got a huge discount and you can do these. It’s too much. I agree. If you’re inexperienced 100% and I can almost guarantee you’re going to lose money if you do it that way.

Dave:
Yeah, totally. I think it’s super hard to do. My first deal that I did out of state that I owned directly, I did a renovation, but I did a very modest scope on purpose. I didn’t go in and say I’m going to change the layout or gut something. I was like, I’m going to renovate the kitchen, I’m going to renovate, do a cosmetic rehab, and even that was still a challenge, but I was able to pull it off. It is definitely possible, but I would recommend that’s more for people who have invested in their own market or in a different market and it sort of had the experience to do that. So I think that’s a really important component of out-of-state investing and getting over the fear that we were talking about is just set yourself up for success. You don’t have to take this just giant leap where everything has to go right on the first deal.
I really think learning and not losing is the number one objective of the first deal that you do in any market, and so find a corresponding property with that and also find an agent who understands that and is not going to pitch you some deal that could have a huge ROI, but it’s fraught with risk or is going to require a lot of your time. I think we talk about a lot on the show, but it really comes down to your goals and if you’re out of state investing, I personally think the first goal should be learn, make a solid return doesn’t have to be great like Kathy said, and that will really sort of narrow your focus and help you pick which deals you should be seriously considering and actually going and underwriting.

Kathy:
Yeah, I cannot emphasize that enough that if you know your strategy and you’re just buying this as an investment, more of a passive investment, you’re busy, then get something newer in a nicer neighborhood. Now if you are unemployed and you can go and spend some time there, that’s different. But another big mistake that people make and they make it over and over again is they don’t calculate the cost of that. If you have to go do a renovation and you have to go stay there and pay for flights and hotels and food and take work off or whatever, that has to be calculated in the cost of that

Dave:
Deal. I often just think about when I’m looking at an out-of-state market, what is your advantage? And mine is not going to be renovation, trying to find the gems that you can renovate and really do a great value add. It’s for the hustlers. It’s going to be people who are doing direct to seller marketing for wholesalers to house flippers, and they’re good at that because they’re there every single day looking for these deals, these diamonds in the rough. And as an out-of-state investor, my advantage is that I’m bringing capital and I can buy things that might be a little bit more expensive relative to that market, but it’s less expensive for me and I can afford to buy something that is in better condition. That is the advantage that I have in that market. I don’t want to be competing against people who know the market better than me.
I want to be competing against other outstate investors for the good properties that are going to be low maintenance, easy to maintain over the long run. So I just really recommend people try and think about that and not try and do something that isn’t really in your wheelhouse, especially in a new market. But Kathy, now we need to talk about actually making an offer. Do you go visit the property in person? Do you do it site unseen? We’re going to get to that right after this break. Before we go into the break though, I want to remind everyone that both Kathy and I will be speaking at BiggerPockets new virtual summit called Momentum 2025. If you haven’t already heard about it, it’s an eight week virtual investing summit starts February 11th. Anyone who signs up gets live access to 18 investing experts. We’re also going to have all sorts of accountability groups and mastermind groups that you can join to meet other investors just like you. Kathy, you and I are talking about the state of the market in 2025, so we’re going to get all into the econ part. I’m excited to have you as backup on that as we try and forecast what is happening in this confusing market. Are there any things you’re particularly looking forward to talking about?

Kathy:
Yeah, I mean you got to look at it every year. I mean really every few months, every quarter you should be looking at the state of the market and you and I are probably doing that weekly. So yeah, I think there’s going to be a lot of changes in 2025. There already are, and we need to be aware of those, so I’m super excited. I mean, some of it comes down to inventory, which areas have too much are oversupplied, which are undersupplied how some of the new administration’s policies might affect real estate. So it’s going to be a whole new year and we need to understand it

Dave:
A hundred percent. Yeah, we’re talking a lot today about tactics, but if you doubt the big picture, make sure to tune into the virtual summit. We’re going to be getting all into that and how you can achieve momentum to build your portfolio in the coming year. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. When we left off, I was going to ask Kathy about actually making an offer on a property and how you do that. Kathy, you talked about visiting a market beforehand, but do you also do that before you make an offer? Do you do it when you get it under contract? Do you do it Not at all. What’s your strategy to make an offers?

Kathy:
So for me personally, once I visited the market, once I’ve chosen my property manager, my real estate agent, once I kind of understand the areas in which neighborhoods I want to be in, then I don’t mind buying sight unseen because the deal you want may not be there the weekend you’re there, it just might not be the best deal or there might not be anything for you, but you understand it well enough and you understand your team well enough. I mean, a little example would be walking into a property management office where they have stacks and stacks of files on every desk. I’ve seen those. Or you walk into a place where every desk is clean and organized and wow, these people are on top of things. So once you have that team in place, then oh my gosh, just send me a deal and I’ll buy it and I don’t need to go through it, I don’t need

Speaker 3:
To go

Kathy:
Through it. You can do enough work as online to review that property and to underwrite that property. So many ways to really understand that market.

Speaker 3:
Totally.

Kathy:
Obviously BiggerPockets has a ton of resources for you, but yeah, no, I still have properties that I’ve never seen.

Dave:
Yeah, well, it’s funny you say that. Last year I bought my first two properties site unseen, and then just last week, two days ago, I went to go visit them for the first time and it was awesome. I was super happy about it. They were exactly what I expected. They weren’t better than I expected. They weren’t worse than expected,

Kathy:
And

Dave:
That’s felt great to me that I was able to accurately evaluate the deal using my agent, using my property manager and using my own skill as an investor. And it was awesome. And I went there and looked at a bunch of deals that I was considering writing on and I walked away probably empty-handed. There was nothing I really liked, but I learned more about that market to just only increase my confidence for next time I get sent one that I actually, I now have better ideas of what tenants, I have better ideas of what neighborhoods have grown in the last year since I last visited. And so I do think it’s important to visit regularly. I like doing that, but I don’t personally think you have to be there for the offer for the inspection. There’s plenty of other information that you can get if you want to. I think it’s fine. I think my recommendation would be if you have that kind of flexibility and you’re particularly nervous once you get something under contract within the inspection period, you can go fly out. It’s probably going to be a short turnaround, but if you want to do that, you can. But having done it sight unseen, you could definitely do it that way too.

Kathy:
Oh yeah, no, I mean, coming back to what you said that I want to make sure people hear, you can get a third party inspector, you should to inspect the property
Whether you’re there or not. If the property were next door, I’d still get an inspector. I still would have no idea the condition of the property until I got that inspector. So that’s just me because I’m not a contractor. I don’t know how to fix things, so I need to rely on someone else. They don’t need me there. I need them to get their expert eyes on it. Always get an inspection and get as many as you can because that’s your eyes and ears. Then same if you’re financing, you’re obviously going to be forced to get an appraisal, but I do know a lot of people who pay cash because in some of these areas, the price points are pretty low. Maybe they’re doing a 10 31 exchange and they can pay cash and they forget to do what the bank would require, which is these things and an appraisal. Why would you not get a third party appraiser to give you the report that you need? It’s four or $500 for hundreds of thousands dollars worth of investment. You just get those third parties licensed. Licensed, and

Dave:
Yes. Yeah, so I’ll just walk people through what I do, the steps. I think what you mentioned about an appraisal and inspection is super important. The order of operations I’ve gone through is I get the deals from my agent, I analyze the ones that sort of pass the sniff test to me and that are in the parts of town or within my buy box. I do the analysis and then I have my agent walk the property. That’s the next step. I want the agent to go there for me
And take videos, actually go in there with a phone and take videos. Ideally, if I can orchestrate it, I have the property manager go at the same time, if not, and I still like the deal. I have the property manager go, and I really like getting those two opinions on the property from the agent and from the property manager, not because one’s wrong or necessarily trying to sell me something I shouldn’t be buying, but they just have different perspectives. Like you said, Kathy, my agent was promoting one in a market that I liked and it probably has great appreciation, and my property manager said, you know what? They just passed this law where there’s these new rental licenses and this one’s going to have X, Y, Z challenges and we’re going to have longer vacancy while we get this one up to speed. It’s not that my agent didn’t know it, but he was thinking a little bit more about the value of the property, where my property manager was thinking about more about the practicality of getting this thing leased quickly,
And I actually still bought the deal, but it was just knowing that and building those assumptions into my performa really helped me sort of think through it. And so I think having both of those people walk through, it’s great. Then you write the offer and at which point you get the inspection, you get the appraisal, make sure you back it up. So at this point, you’re getting three or four different sets of eyes on a deal before you go and buy it, even if they’re not your own eyes. That to me feels like enough, especially if you’re buying something that’s not a 1910 house that needs a gut rehab. If you’re buying something that’s built in the last 50 years and has been maintained relatively well, three or four sets of eyes feels good enough to me.

Kathy:
Yeah, I mean, you just made such a great point that always have your property manager look at the property before you’re out of the contingency period. You can tie up the property, but have the five or 10 days contingency and have them determine if they think they can manage it, if they recommend that, and what it would rent for and any issues it might have. Yeah, people sometimes skip that step and they shouldn’t.

Dave:
So then last thing, hopefully you write an offer, you can close on a deal, and for me at least after that, it’s pretty easy. I arrange for the keys transfer through my agent and my property manager, and depending on whether it’s leased up or not, you should have a plan to get it leased up, or if you’re going to do any renovations, you should have a plan to hopefully hit the ground running. But Kathy, do you have any other advice for people once they actually close in a deal, how to maximize their chances of success in and out of state investment?

Kathy:
Yeah, just be sure to go through your checklist. I know we have a checklist on our side. I’m sure BiggerPockets does too. Sometimes people will close, especially if they’re all cash and forget to have the insurance in place or forget certain things. Have that checklist in front of you. Make sure you’ve got your insurance in place before you close. So little things like that. And then being in communication regularly with your property manager, because some of these companies are growing quickly, maybe they’re not going to give you as much time as you deserve and you want to make sure they have a portal.

Speaker 3:
This

Kathy:
Would be one of the questions I ask a property managers, how are you going to communicate with me? And there’s enough great technology today, like AppFolio or there’s lots of them out there where you can log in and see what they’re doing and how they’re marketing and so forth. So making sure that you’re in very good contact with the property manager.

Dave:
That’s a really good point to set expectations with the property manager too, because sometimes people are like, I’ll report quarterly or I’ll report monthly, or I’ll report hopefully not annually. Having those expectations is really important. And I think just one last piece of advice, literally, this is fresh on my mind. I was just talking to my property manager the other day, and I really feel it’s important to set your expectations as the owner as well. What you want from them in terms of reporting, but the type of business that you want to run. I was telling him that I’m the type of person who would much rather be proactive and pay for something before it breaks. I would rather fix something before the tenant notices it. That’s just me and my strategy in real estate. And he said, you’re really different than a lot of my owners who get really frustrated if I spend $50 without asking them.
And I was really glad that I had that conversation with him because he was now understanding where I’m coming from and the type of business I want to run, the type of risk mitigation I want to do for the long-term viability of my investments. And so just having that conversation now, he knows he has a little bit more freedom to think like an owner and to act on my behalf than he would if you don’t have that conversation and he’s just going to go on presuming to no fault of his own that I think like a lot of the other owners. So I think it’s on you to really make sure that you’re establishing very clear expectations and regularly checking in with your team to make sure that those expectations are being met.

Kathy:
Yep.

Dave:
Alright. Well, we got to get out of here. Kathy, this was fun, but we are running out of time, but just as a reminder, the things we talked about are narrowing down your list. Again, we have tons of different resources you can look at if you need help figuring out how to pick a market, tons of other ones. But for today’s episode, want to highlight the ideas that you need to pick a market. You should go visit and schedule all of those appointments with property managers and with your agents. Then you want to really learn how to underwrite deals in this neighborhood really well. Test off your assumptions, get quotes on everything. Learn to underwrite your deals. Have people walk your properties, two or three different sets of eyes before you make an offer and once you offer, just make sure you have those expectations set with your team for reporting for operating your business and you can do it. It sounds hard, I can tell you it’s really not. I’ve done it. It takes me, I think, probably two hours a month to manage each property. It’s absolutely doable and highly encourage people to not get discouraged or intimidated by this, but actually just follow these steps and figure out a way that you can make this happen.

Kathy:
Absolutely.

Dave:
Alright, well thank you so much, Kathy. I appreciate you being here today and sharing your expertise with us.

Kathy:
Thanks for having me. It’s always fun.

Dave:
If you have any questions on how to invest out of state, you can always hit me up. You can hit Kathy up. We will put our links to our social media and other contact information. I love talking about this stuff, so if you have any questions, please let me know. If not, we’ll see you for another episode of the BiggerPockets podcast very soon. Thanks for listening.