BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - How to Buy Your First Out-of-State Real Estate Investment (Step-by-Step)

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Out-of-state real estate investing is making a comeback, becoming one of the best investing strategies of 2025. Why? Home prices in most coastal markets have exploded, forcing investors in pricey areas to look elsewhere for real estate deals that work. Thankfully, America is a big country with plenty of profitable real estate markets, so even if you’re priced out of your own area, you can still invest elsewhere. So, how do you start? What should you do going into a new market as a new investor? Kathy Fettke is returning to the show as our resident long-distance real estate expert, showing you how to buy out-of-state investment properties in just a few simple steps. Anyone (and we mean ANYONE) can follow these steps to purchase a profitable property from a distance, even if it’s your first rental. We’re giving you an exact roadmap of everything you need to know: how to choose markets, find deals, analyze them, get property management, and start renting them out even if you live thousands of miles away. In This Episode We Cover: How to pick an out-of-state investing market and whether you need to visit it first Analyzing deals from a distance and key factors to get right (insurance, property taxes, and more) How to buy a house sight unseen, EVEN as a beginner investor The one type of rental property Kathy says you should buy for your first rental What to tell a property manager as soon as you close on your first long-distance rental And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Let Us Know What You Thought of the Show! Ask Your Question on the BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets YouTube BiggerPockets Market Finder Try REsimpli, The Only All-In-One Real Estate Investor CRM Software That Helps You Manage Data, Marketing, Sales, and Operations Sign Up for BiggerPockets Momentum 2025 to Supercharge Your Investing This Year Grab the Book on “Long-Distance Real Estate Investing” Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area Should You Invest Locally or Long Distance? Connect with Kathy Connect with Dave (00:00) Intro (01:31) Why Invest Out of State? (05:51) 1. Pick (and Visit!) Markets (11:00) Meet with Agents/Property Managers (15:17) 2. Define a "Good" Deal (17:16) Buy New/Turnkey? (20:45) Know Your "Advantage" (23:43) 3. Make an Offer (27:47) How to Buy Sight Unseen (30:18) 4. Close and Manage the Rental (33:22) Reviewing the Steps Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1080 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Bigger Popper.

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 handpick 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 Fecky as well. Gathy, thanks for joining us. Thanks for inviting me. 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? Yeah, absolutely. When I first learned about real estate investing, I interviewed Robert Kiyosaki and he talked about cash flow. 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, you know, this idea of cash flow 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. Yeah. This was 20 years ago. that I had to dive in and learn it. That makes sense because California was still expensive 20 years ago.

But a lot of the rest of the country wasn't. You know, I started investing in Denver 15 years ago, but you could find cash flow there. Now that market super difficult. I haven't bought a cash flowing 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, like 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 cash flow over just a pure appreciation play. Do you agree with the hypothesis that this needs to become more commonplace for more people? Well, real estate cycles. It's just how it always has been. And, you know, we've seen prices go up for a decade. So a lot of people have only seen really one cycle. Yeah. 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, you know, 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, you know, in the East Bay of San Francisco

or in Riverside. You know, 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?

You know, I can buy a brand new house in Dallas, Texas, where it has the strongest job growth and population growth in the country. It's only $145,000. You know, it was shocking. Yeah, and I think that's super appealing, right? 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, you know, where the median home price is $500,000, $600,000, there are places where it's still $3,000 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. 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. 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. Like, you need to sort of 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 sort of like 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 like share with people like the tactics.

Just like step by step. What do you do to go invest out of state? So what do you recommend first, finding a market? 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, you know, how he jumps off bridges and does extreme sports and the courage he needs for that.

And, you know, 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, you know, 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. That's such a good point. 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 $100,000. And I'm going to get it because it's cheap. And we're both like, 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, and 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 a 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, like super cheap for California,

but very expensive for that area. The median home price was like 120 at the time. So that's kind of 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 because 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, right, to find the median home price. Just Google it. And that will at least keep you out of trouble a little bit.

I totally agree. I think it really gets you over that fear as like going and just seeing the place for yourself. And, you know, 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 slash 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, like first step, what I recommend, at least, is narrowing it down to two or three markets that you 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 100% 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 like 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 I'm happy with most of those decisions and at least was able to like put the face to a name. It's the same thing like when you meet someone. Like 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 like the same thing when selecting a market. Yeah, there's a feeling. Everyone has their strengths, right? 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, you know, 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, you know, they don't know. Totally. So making sure if you have an agent, they specialize in investment property and hopefully they own it. I mean, that would be the best of both worlds.

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 manager? 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. Totally. I completely agree. I want to come back to that idea of a piece.

first, but just for everyone, remembering the logistical steps here, I think we might have forgotten something because we're 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. Yes. So line up meetings with like 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, you know, pick three to five people, agents, three to five property managers. call them all before you go there and then pick one or two of each that you feel pretty good about and then line up meetings. That's at least what I've done in the past. Yeah. 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, like, 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. Like I want my PM to be like, you know, the rents are low. Like maybe you can get them 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 rates. 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'm 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? Like, if you or 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. 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. 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, ReSimpley, for the previous segment.

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you like. If you have a good vibe on, what comes next? How do you actually pull off buying something? So once you've found your market and you found your team, there's more things you need to understand, obviously, like let's just do a basic one, property taxes. Right. Getting that pro forma 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 pro forma, right? 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. Like 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 like 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? 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. You know, age of property and condition of property is something people miss so many times. 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? Because 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. Oh, absolutely. I mean, your first investment property, and sometimes people's first property ever is their first investment property. Yep. So there is so much to learn in that first transaction. Make it easy for you. you know, just even the process of getting a 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, you know, don't go into those high crime areas because you know, the price is low when you got a huge discount and you can do these renovate. It's too much if you're inexperienced 100%. And I can almost guarantee you're going to lose money if you do it that way. Yeah, totally. I think it's super hard to do. You know, 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 like change the layout or got something.

I was like, I'm going to renovate the kitchen. I'm going to renovate, you know, 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 that's a really important component of out-of-state investing and getting over the fear that we were talking about. It's like just set yourself up for success.

Like 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 it's not going to, you know, pitch you some deal that could have a huge ROI, but it's fraught with risk. or, you know, 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 in underwriting. Yeah, I cannot emphasize that enough that, you know, if you know your strategy and you know you're just buying this as an investment, more of a passive investment, because 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. Like, 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 deal. I often just think about when I'm looking at the out-of-state market, like, what is your advantage? And mine is not going to be renovation. Like, you know, trying to find the gems that you can renovate and really do a great value ad is for the hustlers. You know, 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. 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. Like, 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 out-of-state 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 sight 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 Bigger Pocket's 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? 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 area have too much, are oversupplied, which are undersupplied, how, you know, some of the new administrations policies might affect real estate. So it's going to be a whole new year and we need to understand it. 100%. Yeah, we're talking a lot today about tactics. But if you're not the big

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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 under contract? Do you do it? Not at all. What's your strategy to making offers? So for me personally, once I've visited the market, once I've chosen my property manager, my real estate agent, you know, 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 you know, 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. I don't need to get through it. I don't need to work yet. You can do enough work, as you know, online to review that property and to underwrite that property. So many ways to really understand that market. Obviously, Bigger Pockets has a ton of resources for you.

But yeah, no, I still have properties that I've never seen. Yeah. That'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. Yeah. And it was awesome.

I was super happy about it because they were exactly what I expected. They weren't better than I expected. They weren't worse than expected. Yeah. And that 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 like. I now have better ideas of what tenants like. 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 can definitely do it that way, too. Oh, yeah.

No, absolutely. I mean, coming back to what you said that I want to make sure people here, 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, you know, because that's your eyes and ears. Then, same. If you're financing, you're obviously going to be forced to get an appraised. 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 1031 exchange and they can pay cash. And they forget to do what the bank would require, which is these things and is, you know, an appraisal.

Like, why would you not get a third party appraiser to give you the report that you need? It's, you know, $400 for hundreds of thousand dollars worth of investment. You know, you just get those third parties. Licensed. Licensed. Yes. Yeah. So I'll just walk people through what I do, like 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 like pass the sniff test to me and that are in the parts of town are within my buy box. I do the analysis. And then, you know, 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, you know, 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. Like my agent was promoting one in a market that I liked and 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 more about the practicality of getting this thing leased quickly. And I actually still bought the deal. But it was just knowing that and like building those assumptions into my pro forma really helped me sort of think through it. And so I think having both of those people walk through it is 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. You know, if you're buying something that's, you know, built in the last 50 years and has been maintained relatively well, three or four sets of eyes feels good enough to me. 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, you know, the five or ten days contingency and have them to turn. and 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. So then last thing, you know, hopefully you write an offer, you can close on a deal. And for me, at least after that, it's pretty easy. Like, I arrange for the key 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? Like, once they actually close in a deal, how to maximize their chances of success in an out-of-state investment?

Yeah, just be sure to go through your checklist. I know we have a checklist on our side. I'm sure bigger pockets does too. Sometimes people will close, especially if they're all cash and forget to have the insurance in place or forget, you know, certain things. Oh, yeah. You know, have that checklist in front of you, make sure you've got your insurance. in place before you close, right? 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. This would be one of the questions I ask a property manager is, how are you going to communicate with me? And, you know, there's enough great technology today like Appfolio or, you know, 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.

That's a really good point to set expectations with the property manager, too. Because sometimes people are like, you know, I'll report quarterly or I'll report monthly or I'll report hopefully not annually. You know, having those expectations is really important. And I think just one last piece of advice. Like I literally, you know, this is fresh on my mind because 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.

Like what you want from them in terms of reporting, but the type of business that you want to run. Because 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. Like that's just me and my strategy and real estate. And he said, you know, you're really different than a lot of my owners who get really frustrated if I spend $50 without asking them. And I was like, really glad that I had that conversation with him because he was like 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, like, 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. All right. Well, we got to get out of here, Kathy. This was fun, but we were 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, I 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. Once you offer, just make sure you have those expectations set with your team for reports, for operating your business, and you can do it. It sounds hard. I can tell you it's really not.

I've done it and takes me, I think probably two hours a month to manage each properly. 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. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much, Kathy. I appreciate you being here today and sharing your expertise with us. Thanks for having me. It's always fun. 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 Bigger Pockets podcast very soon. Thanks for listening. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by E&K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only.

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