Resources for finding out-of-state contacts

[Jerry Poon]

I live in Southern California, and will be for the foreseeable future. From listening to a few podcasts and reading posts here, it seems like California is not the best place to start for newbies with not a lot of capital to begin with. What tools and resources are available to me to network with out-of-state people in the real estate business? I am mainly looking for someone who would be able to find properties, walk them, appraise them, and ultimately manage them. It sounds like a lot, but I want to do this right and find someone good. Where do I begin? Has anyone ever been intentionally screwed by someone because of the distance? How do you build trust with such a person?