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Daria B.
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Gainesville, FL
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The challenges of looking for property "out of area"!

Daria B.
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Gainesville, FL
Posted Jun 25 2015, 11:07

The “out of area” for me is 2 hours. I don’t see how others do it if it’s in another state far away or in the same state more than 2 hours.

I’m finding this to be quite daunting. I like to drive areas to see if I really want to proceed and then send over to my agent the particulars. She’s great because she may know something I don’t like foundation issues (something never seen in the descriptions on the real estate web sites), which we then move on to the next property. So, yes she doesn’t just do the “robot” thing: “I’m only going to give you what you asked for.”

With homework and spreadsheet results in hand I plan on looking at some properties this weekend after my 2 hour trek.

Originally, when I asked my local-agent if she could recommend or find someone that I can work with in this area, she got back with me and gave me a name.

I called and found out that the realtor is a very young guy that unfortunately shows he has not been doing this work for very long (1 year to be exact, is being shepherded by his broker/owner more than what I thought would happen). I gave him what I was looking for and what I wanted to achieve in rent (of course that is not always doable given the market). We also talked about my expectations and I asked what he needed from me and if I send properties over what would work for him. So, initially I thought we determined what would work for both of us.

I met him on a trip up that was more for seeing friends and using that time to drive around the areas to lay eyes on. While I was there we had already pre-arranged to see one  property, unfortunately the property was trashed and beyond what I wanted to get involved with as an investment.

After that trip and more conversations to ensure both of use still had the same objectives, I ended up speaking with the owner/broker because he couldn’t answer any of the questions I had like giving me an ideal of which areas I could look at (of course without going against any ethical things that realtors have to abide by), rents I could get, area sales. Yes, I did the “web search for crime”, looked up some rental rates, and tried to narrow my areas to a smaller net of homes. By nature I am a researcher so if I say this is what I want then know I’ve already done my homework and have decided. There is a ton of information out there and I looked at learning a new area before dealing with any realtor. Maybe all agents work differently but my expectation is from my experience with my local-agent that is a forward thinker and communicates well and is well versed in her craft.

The conversation with the broker/owner he works for flooded my ears with cap rates and expectations on areas like students populate here or more professionals in this area but some grad students, if I am looking at student rental then I need to be weary of the cycles (in/out when they look for housing, etc). Wow, ok this is what I was asking for…..Ideally, the purchase price for as low as it can be bought and the rent that will cover the expenses and still have cash flow, and being rentable is the investment.

To the point of looking “out of area”, I am traveling to see properties and want to utilize this time effectively to see as much as I can given the fact that I can only do this on weekends. He asked, “which properties are you most interested in so we can *just* see those”? Well,…..I’m interested in the list I gave over so that I can lay eyes on the property and investigate if it’s worth pursuing. Is that unrealistic?

I had 12 properties initially that I would have narrowed down, but, it was narrowed down for me because 5 now have pending offers. I re-listed my list and every day one gets plucked from my list. Nature of the beast! I don’t think it to be unrealistic to see 7 properties in two days since I don’t live in this area. Am I going about this all wrong? I don’t think I am?!?. How best else to utilize the time knowing I only have a few hours to make a decision on what to pursue *if* to pursue at all. I’m utilizing the same mind set as if I were at home and found properties to look at, doing the same steps; it’s just a 2 hour distance away.

It took a little longer after getting comps to filter through and then just do some web searching because he gave me properties that were a year to 3 years old. How those would be comps, I’m perplexed. If there isn’t anything in the immediate area then don’t they have to go out of area to another sub-division/location? The last property I purchased, that’s just what happened, both the realtor upon giving me comps and the appraiser when it came time to do the loan, went further.

I’m an avid believer in helping someone and honestly, everyone is “new” at something at one point or another in their life. We all have to start somewhere. I’m just not sure how this will turn out. Of course the spreadsheets look good for the analysis but realistically, getting out and seeing the property and the area are what will for a greater percentage determine if it’s worth pursuing.

It was suggested to me I should let this pass and find someone else and that he’s not going to make it as a realtor. I will find out after this weekend and I hope for both of us it’s productive.

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