How can I build an out of state real estate team? 17 yrs old.

[Martel Fowler]

I’m 17 yrs old , I want to buy a cheap property in Cleveland,OH and it needs full rehab. How can I find a contractor and property management.

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Allie Dickson:

Hey, Martel. You might search for investors, realtors, property managers, and contractors in Cleveland on Bigger Pockets first. Perhaps you can get some good leads through this platform. If you don't get a good start there you could find the top property managers in Cleveland based on their online reviews and interview many of them to see who is the cream of the crop. Get their opinions on rental amounts for the subject property and if it's a good area of town to rent in. Once you pick a couple of PMs you can use them as a resource to find great contractors. A good PM should know many good contractors. I would get bids from about 5 different contractors and see how they compare. Ask them to give you itemized bids so you can understand how they break down their charges. 

Have you read Matt Greene's book "Long Distance Real Estate Investing"? If not, you MUST read. I'm basically paraphrasing it. It's amazing! 

Best of luck on getting the deal done. :D

 While this advice sounds good on the surface it is in no way practical in the real world. There is zero chance 5 contractors are going to give a line by line bid to someone who's thinking about buying a property. Multiply that by 10 when the person thinking about buying this property is a high school kid from out of town. Ain't happening.

 What you need to do is study up on all of the free content that is out there. Youtube, here on BP and Facebook. You can setup Cleveland based keyword alerts on BP and join Real Estate investing groups on Facebook. There are Cleveland based ones and national ones as well. Join all of them. Engage with people working in them. Start following investors, property managers, realtors and other professionals who are doing what you want to do. Then get yourself pre-approved through a lender. Once you've got that hire a Realtor who's working at a company that also handles Property Management to help you buy a property. The Property Management team should then be able to coordinate your renovations.