Sometimes it is a good idea for a blog to go back to the basics and review some of the founding concepts for the benefit of new readers. A few years back, more than he cares to mention sometimes, Jason Hartman created the term Area Agnostic. The phrase has nothing at all to do with religion and everything to do with the process an investor should follow when selecting a property for his or her portfolio.

Here’s a question for you.

Should an investor cling myopically to his local region, always selecting investment properties from the area, no matter how terrible returns are expected to perform?

The answer is off course, “No!”

Whether they use the term or not, successful real estate investors learn about Area Agnosticism at some point along the way. This means you go where the good deals are and do not allow yourself to be locked into the misguided and dangerous belief that you’ve got to invest locally. The reality of the housing market is there is a good chance the deal of a lifetime is waiting patiently for you halfway across the nation.

Even real estate professionals get locked into the habit of only scanning local listings, then regurgitating that information to customers in the market for a great income property. AIPIS readers would do well to keep in mind that you might be doing someone a horrible disservice with this way of thinking.

The problem must lie somewhere in our DNA. We prefer to interact with that which is familiar to us and, geographically speaking, most people aren’t very diverse. How far do you travel away from your home on a regular basis? Five miles? Twenty miles? Few of us expand our reach out to one hundred miles regularly.

Why limit yourself like that? This nation of ours stretches more than three thousand miles from coast to coast. It only makes sense to make full use of the resources at your disposal. Throw out your biases and become Area Agnostic. It’s liable to be very good for your pocketbook.

The AIPIS Team

Flickr / Daniel Williams