I recently paddled my canoe from Washington to Florida and upon accepting a stable job and returning to the Green Bay area I have been looking into house hacking.

Below are my selected quotes from Long Distance Out of State Investing by David Greene.

@Nick CoplandNo requirement on cleanings during the stay.

More often than people think, and in my experience it’s usually not “financing speed” in isolation, it’s financing readiness.Most deals that die from timing issues fail because one of these wasn’t locked in before the offer went hard:Borrower docs not clean or consistentEntity structure changing mid-dealAppraisal expectations not aligned with the lender’s methodologyExit strategy not clearly underwritten (refi vs sale vs hold)When we’re moving fast, the capital stack is already decided before the contract is signed.

Some use notes in Excel for upgrades and property history, which works, but it can get fragmented pretty quickly as things add up.For my rentals, I’ve been using Baselane’s platform alongside my property management setup to keep the financial and property-level details organized — expenses tied to specific upgrades, notes tied to transactions, and a clean record of what’s been done to each property over time.

Quote from @Lacreasha Green: Thank you for sharing this — that’s a great example and very encouraging.

Most investors remember their first deal nerves.LTR vs STR for a first dealIn my experience, long-term rentals are usually the best place to start.STRs can make more money but come with more moving parts, regulation risk, and management complexity.A clean LTR lets you learn fundamentals before leveling up.Since you’re targeting the Southeast or Midwest with a ~$75k budget, that’s very doable in the right markets.

Deals showing 7%+ in B areas are either:priced very aggressively (often off-market),lightly underwritten, orrelying on short-term assumptions that don’t hold long-term.In most cases, 7%+ CoC in today’s environment is coming from one of three places:C-class risk (which you’re already avoiding),Value-add execution (rent bumps, expense cleanup, operational inefficiencies),Creative structure (seller carry, rate buy-downs, lower leverage, or higher equity checks).Personally, we’ve adjusted expectations on initial cash-on-cash in B areas and focus more on:durability of the asset,rent growth over 24–36 months,and total return rather than Year-1 cash flow optics.If you’re underwriting clean, long-term B-class assets at 5–6% CoC and they still make sense after stress-testing, that’s not a miss — that’s the current market.

Quote from @Lacreasha Green: I’m preparing to move forward on my first fix-and-flip-to-rent (BRRRR-style) project in a secondary market and wanted to learn from those who’ve executed similar deals.For investors who started with smaller acquisition prices and heavier rehabs, what financing structures or lender types ended up working best on your early projects?

@Ian Mc namara I used to live in Auburn so I am familiar with the greens.