How to manage out of stare rehab during the shutdown?

[Cuong Nguyen]

Hey everyone! 

My first post here. My wife and I have recently closed on a property in Portland Oregon. This is our fist out-of-state deal (we both live in California), so we are super excited. We are planning to fix up the property and rent it out. We have already found a property manager and have had contractor bids lined up.

Now I think it's important that we can check the construction progress, so our original plan was to move the whole family up to Portland for about a month to oversee it. We have two kids (one two years old and another two months old) with no help from families, so that seems like the best option for us. However, now that the virus outbreak is rapidly getting worse, we really don't want to risk getting the whole family outside. Just the thought of having to rent a hotel or putting my kids outside have already scared me 

I'd love to get some advice or feedback from you guys on what we should do in this situation? Ideally we'd love to stay at home and still being able to manage the rehab. But realistically we don't know how to do that.

A couple things we were considering:

**I heard about boots on the ground. But I'm curious how would you find anyone reliable enough to help during this time? Are there services that you can hire?

**We asked our property manager. He'd usually offer such kind of service, but right now he's extremely overwhelmed and has stopped taking on that responsibility.

Anything else we should try? We'll probably get our deed recorded with the county this Friday and hoping to get construction starting next Monday. 

Thanks!

[Chris Levarek]

@Cuong Nguyen Congratulations on the purchase! Curious as to why you chose Portland as isn't that similar markets to California? Good deal comparatively to what you were finding in California or just wanted something close by to be able to fly up easier?

Only reason I bring this up is because, out-of-state means building the resources so that you don't need to be there. Otherwise if the security of visually seeing the investment daily is important, might as well just buy in California. 

Now as to suggestions on going forward, I like both your options there. So I suggest for :

1. Property Manager : How about adding incentive for the property manager to prioritize your needs over other properties? 
   1. Perhaps, raising his percentage or cut higher at least throughout the construction phase or even long term. 
   2. Perhaps a simple $100 extra a month to visit the property once a week.
   3. Perhaps this even leads to an arrangement on future properties.

1. Boots on the ground : Partner Up!
   1. Search Bigger Pockets members or forum posts for anyone in Portland who would have construction, property management or investing experience. 
   2. Set Filters for "Portland", "Portland Investor", "Portland Construction", "Oregon", etc so you are notified whenever someone talks about it. 
   3. Partner up or come to an arrangement whereby they help in this project and you maybe bring capital in another project of theirs. The sky is the limit on what can be decided in partnerships. Be creative.

We've done all of the above as I invest in North Carolina while living in Phoenix, Arizona. DM me if you want to discuss options directly. As a side note, my business partner does live in Portland but we do focus mainly on North Carolina at present.