Out of country investing woes

[Cory O'Dell]

My wife and I are new investors currently stationed in Europe, with the motivation to not let that stop us from getting started. We've put in offers on 3 properties now in Dayton Ohio (where I grew up and still have connections), but none of them have been accepted...one accepted a cash offer and 1 week closing, one sat on the market for 3 months then the same weekend we put in our offer, they received another offer and they accepted that one. The last one they countered barely moving off the asking price and they ignored our next counter. Is the market just too competitive now to be submitting low offers? Everything I've read on this site and in the books and on the podcast says you have to be okay writing low offers, but it's starting to seem like if you want to get in on the action you have to pay your dues.

The offers have all been 2-4 units, but I'm starting to look at SFRs just because I've run out of small multi-families to analyze. Any Ohio investors in care to share what their target cash flow is per door or per residence is? The SFRs I've looked at cash flow less than $150 per month after accounting for maintenance/cap-ex/vacancy etc. I never thought spending 80k-100k on a SFR in a C class neighborhood to cash flow $150 would be a good deal, but we've been looking since April and we still haven't been able to get a house under contract.

After our last buy attempt fell through, we don't have any other houses in mind right now, so back to square one. Any thoughts/advice?

[Jay Hinrichs]

don't be in a rush to jump in... there are always deals.. and unless you think there is going to be drastic appreciation what are you losing... 2 to 3k by sitting on the sidelines a few years until you get back.. ??  we have some serious herd mentality going on right now..