Posted by John Corey on April 12, 2006 at 16:12:48:
I invest at a distance (the property spans 10 time zones if I counted right).
I find that the best long distance deals are generally buy and hold. It is hard to hunt bargains that you are going to flip when you are not active in the local market. You can not act quickly when you find a deal and you can not easily market the property. If you start subcontracting out some of the activities you will eat into the profit margin.
So, most people who do short term deals (flips, wholesale, etc) are people doing deals in their local market IMHO.
If you are looking to flip at a distance then sometimes the best way is to buy new construction that you can hold until it comes time to sell. This takes months or years and has all the implied risks of a longer time frame.
If you are in MI you might be better to focus locally, make the money and then move to AL and start again.
Or one (or both) need to move to AL before you have paid off the debt and do deals locally to build cash and pay the debt.
John Corey