Investing 4 hours away from home.

I currently live in Miami, FL and in a few months I’ll have the necessary employment history and tax documents to apply for a mortgage on my first investment property. I’ve done a good amount of research and my god this damn city is too expensive. I’m considering looking into properties in Orlando, maybe near UCF or Disney, but am still unsure about investing away from home. Anyone on here invest away from home or specially invest in the Orlando area? Any tips would help.

Do you own your own home?

I have 6 rentals in 3 different states in Australia and live in the USA. Australian property managers are cheaper and better than here so it’s probably not equivalent. I personally think you should invest where it makes more sense and 4 hours really isnt that far. You will just need to find some contractors and handymen that are local to that area.

Time is worth something. You won’t be able to keep up with day to day management, repair & maintenance work being 4 hours away.

Unless you are ‘flipping,’ I don’t think it is a good idea to invest in a single unit 4 hours from home, as you will become a slave to riding up and down the Florida Turnpike…if, however, you purchase multifamily units where you can justify an on sight manager, then, yes, that would be sensible…in fact, I purchased a commercial multifamily property in a different state from my residence, hired an onsight manager, kept the property for 7 years, and then sold it…and although the distance was a bit problematic, I still profited from the transaction.

BUT, for a single unit, in my opinion, you would be better served buying in So. Florida, maybe 1 or 2 hours from where you live so that it is manageable.

Hope this helps.


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I own a handful of rental properties that are about 2 hours away from me. I have been self-managing them, but I have realized how much of a hassle it is that I am slowly turning them over to a property manager.

It can be done, but you must have a good system and team in place. It can be really stressful when a unit becomes vacant and you have to turn it over and find new tenants. This will involve you having to travel to the unit to show the property possibly multiple times. I’ve done it, and it’s not fun when you have a family and a full time job.

I will also say that finding a good reputable property management company is key if you elect not to self-manage. I did have a property manager for one of my properties that scammed me pretty bad. A lot of lessons learned.

So invest where it makes sense for you. If that is long distance, then make sure you have good systems in place if you self-manage or make sure you hire a good, honest property manager. Otherwise, there is a good chance you may get burned.

I actually wrote an article about the 6 houses I bought in Australia site unseen. I lived in Australia at the time but they were all in different states and I diversified into different markets. To this day I have never seen them and use property managers to manage them while I am living and investing in New Orleans. I outlined the process I used in this article I wrote of hipages - https://hipages.com.au/article/buying_managing_properties_out_of_state