Pet Peeves of an Out-of-Town Landlord

Real estate investing long distance was much harder than I expected in real life. I have known for a long time that being a real estate investor, business owner and entrepreneur was my chosen direction in life. In today's economy, it is essential for every individual and family to build a financial net for themselves because working for a company in a job is a potentially precarious situation. I have become a strong advocate for creating multiple streams of income.

I began learning about how to buy real estate in January 2007, reading, listening to CDs, going to boot camps, joining my local REIA and taking bus tours out to nearby markets to look at houses because the NYC market was so expensive. In August 2007, I bought my first investment property, a single family 3 BR, 1 BA house in North Philly, PA, in what turned out to be a war zone area. I bought my second duplex (1 BR, 1 1/2 BA & 4 BR, 1 1/2 BA) and third duplex (3 BR, 1 BA & 4 BR, 1 BA) properties in Syracuse, NY in October 2007 and Countrywide collapsed that month. It's called the school of hard knocks for a reason...

Pet Peeves
1) Acquiring an Effective Property Manager - deciding whether to choose a single person manager or a team; staying informed about tenants, houses and repairs in a timely way; getting accurate accounting of repairs and expenses for tax accounting, preferably beforehand; being overruled on direct orders; not being close enough to keep an eye on things myself; being told something has been completed only to find out it wasn't; getting rental payments; figuring out what systems I needed to put in place (communication, reporting, payments, invoicing, etc.).

Building a Power Team at a Distance - realtor(s), lawyer, property manager, appraiser, property inspector, handyman, painter, contractor, plumber, electrician, etc. Who do you ask for referrals when the property is outside your backyard?

Knowing the Neighborhoods You are Investing in - It's much harder to walk the neighborhood in the daytime, at night, when kids are getting out of school and weekends to see who lives there when the property is 2-6 hours away.

Knowing Who to Trust About What - Lacking confidence in my own competence in investing in Philadelphia and Syracuse, I trusted what others said when I did not know what questions I needed to be asking.

That said, I belong to a group of eight women entrepreneurs who are also real estate investors and, by sharing our real estate experiences, trials and tribulations at least twice a month, we help each other find solutions to our long-distance investing challenges. When it isn't you, the answers seem so clear... Ha ha!