Where to Start with David Greene: A Reading Guide
Where to start with David Greene — how to approach Long-Distance Real Estate Investing, his definitive guide to buying and managing rental properties outside your local market. A complete reading guide.
By Marcus Webb
David Greene is an American real estate investor, author, and co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast who built a large rental portfolio across multiple US states while living in California — a market where cash-flowing rentals are among the hardest to find in the country. His decision to invest in markets outside California, and the systems he developed to do so effectively, became the basis for Long-Distance Real Estate Investing: How to Buy, Rehab, and Manage Out-of-State Rental Properties (2017), published by BiggerPockets.
Where to Start: Long-Distance Real Estate Investing (2017)
The essential David Greene — and the most practically useful real estate investing book for the millions of potential investors whose local markets have priced them out of cash-flowing rentals. Most real estate investing advice assumes that you invest where you live. For investors in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Boston, and other high-cost metropolitan areas, this assumption has become functionally prohibitive: properties that generate meaningful cash flow are essentially unavailable at any price that produces a positive return.
Long-Distance Real Estate Investing challenges this assumption directly. Greene’s argument: the reluctance to invest outside your local market is a psychological habit, not a practical constraint. The technology that has transformed every other industry — communication, documentation, financial transfer, property inspection — has made remote real estate management substantially more feasible than it was even a decade ago. The investor who refuses to invest outside driving distance is not being prudent; they are imposing an unnecessary restriction that limits their access to the most important variable in real estate: location fundamentals.
Market selection is the first major framework Greene provides. Not all markets are equal as investment targets, and the criteria that make a market attractive for a remote investor differ from those that make it attractive for a local one. Greene teaches investors to screen markets on population growth, job market diversification, landlord-friendly legal environment, and the ratio of median home price to median rent — the fundamental measure of whether cash flow is achievable. Markets with strong population growth driven by diverse economic sectors, landlord-favourable law, and favourable price-to-rent ratios are the targets.
The core team is the non-negotiable foundation of remote investing. Greene identifies four roles that must be filled by trustworthy, competent local professionals before any transaction should proceed:
The agent is the investor’s eyes, ears, and deal source in the local market. Greene distinguishes between agents who work with local homebuyers and agents who understand investment analysis and can screen deals on cap rate and cash flow before presenting them. The second type is rarer and worth finding specifically.
The lender must understand investment property financing rather than residential mortgage products. Greene covers the different loan products available for investment properties, the qualification criteria, and how to establish relationships with local lenders who can close efficiently on deals that require fast action.
The contractor is the most difficult relationship to manage remotely, because construction quality is the hardest thing to verify from a distance. Greene provides specific protocols for vetting contractors: checking references thoroughly, starting with small projects before large ones, requiring photographic documentation at each stage, and using local contacts to provide oversight during the rehabilitation process.
The property manager is the ongoing management relationship that determines whether remote investing is sustainable. Greene covers the selection criteria, the contract terms to negotiate, the performance metrics to track, and the process for replacing a property manager who is not performing.
Technology threads through every aspect of the system. Video calls for property walkthroughs. Digital documentation for inspections, contracts, and maintenance records. Online rent collection platforms. Property management software for tracking income and expenses. None of these replace the judgment and relationships that make remote investing work, but they create the information infrastructure that allows an investor to oversee a portfolio across state lines with the visibility necessary for sound management.
Why Long-Distance Real Estate Investing Is the Ideal First Book
For a reader new to David Greene, Long-Distance Real Estate Investing is the ideal first book because it is among his best-known works and a fine expression of his distinctive contribution, practical, experience-based guidance for real-estate investing, here focused on investing in property markets far from where you live. Long-Distance Real Estate Investing lays out Greene’s system for buying and managing rental property remotely, covering how to build a team, evaluate markets and deals, and manage property from a distance. As an entry point it is ideal, for it is one of his best-known books and a clear example of his practical, system-based approach. It welcomes the newcomer with its practical system, its experience-based guidance, and its accessible style, drawing the reader into the practice of real-estate investing. It is among his major works and a fine representation of his approach, so the new reader encounters Greene’s thinking directly. For the newcomer interested in real-estate investing, then, this book is an excellent starting point.
What to Expect as a New Reader
As a new reader, you can expect Long-Distance Real Estate Investing to be a practical, system-based, and experience-grounded guide to real-estate investing. You can expect a focus on remote investing, for the book addresses buying and managing rental property far from where you live. You can expect a practical system, for Greene lays out his approach to building a team, evaluating markets and deals, and managing property remotely. You can expect experience-based guidance, for Greene draws on his own investing and real-estate career. You can expect an emphasis on building reliable systems and teams. You can expect actionable, hands-on advice. You can expect an accessible style aimed at investors. You should approach real-estate investing with careful due diligence and awareness of its risks. Expect, in short, a practical, system-based, and experience-grounded guide to real-estate investing, a fine introduction to Greene’s approach.
Going Deeper After Your First Book
Once Long-Distance Real Estate Investing has introduced you to Greene’s approach, the reader who wishes to go deeper can explore his other books and the wider literature of real-estate investing to which his work belongs. His other works cover further aspects of real-estate investing, including strategies for buying, financing, and building a real-estate business, while his broader work, including his presence in the real-estate investing community, extends his practical guidance. The broad field of real-estate investing literature offers many further perspectives on strategy, financing, and the practical realities of investing that the reader is well prepared to explore, always with careful due diligence. Reading more widely deepens your engagement with Greene’s distinctive contribution, the practical, system-based approach to real-estate investing. His characteristic practicality runs through his work. Building your reading journey from Long-Distance Real Estate Investing is a matter of following his approach into his other books and the wider real-estate literature. The reader who begins here will have a practical foundation for real-estate investing.
Reading David Greene
Long-Distance Real Estate Investing is Greene’s most widely read and most practically influential book. It stands alone and is most valuable for investors in expensive local markets, or those who want to build a diversified portfolio across multiple geographies.
For the full David Greene bibliography, reviews, and biography, visit the David Greene author page on Editors Reads.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with David Greene?
Long-Distance Real Estate Investing: How to Buy, Rehab, and Manage Out-of-State Rental Properties (2017) is Greene's essential book — a detailed framework for building a rental portfolio in markets outside your local area, from a California investor who did exactly this across multiple states. The book that solved the problem most real estate investing guides ignore: how to invest when your local market is too expensive for cash-flowing rentals.
What is Long-Distance Real Estate Investing about?
Long-Distance Real Estate Investing argues that the assumption that you must invest locally is both outdated and self-limiting — particularly for investors in expensive coastal markets where cash-flowing rentals are nearly impossible to find. Greene describes how to identify target markets with better fundamentals, build a team of local professionals (agent, lender, contractor, property manager) you can trust, analyse and purchase deals remotely, and manage properties across state lines using technology and systems.
Is long-distance real estate investing riskier than local investing?
Long-distance investing introduces risks that local investing does not — primarily the challenge of trusting and managing a team you cannot oversee directly. Greene addresses these risks with specific systems: how to identify trustworthy agents and contractors, how to verify work remotely, how to structure property management relationships, and how to use technology for oversight. His argument is that these manageable risks are worth the access to better-performing markets that local investing denies.
What should I read after Long-Distance Real Estate Investing?
After Long-Distance Real Estate Investing, Frank Gallinelli's What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow provides the financial analysis tools to rigorously evaluate the deals you find in any market — cap rate, cash-on-cash return, and IRR applied to specific opportunities. Brandon Turner's The Book on Rental Property Investing covers the operational foundation of rental property management for those building on Greene's geographic strategy.
