It forced me to reach out to developers, to engineers dozens of local builders and most important like minded individuals.

I found this deal as an off-market property through my local network in the Hamptons.

In The Tampa Bay Area local investor in the items inside the home/business but looking to get with the right people to build a team.

I suggest you start out by meeting like minded people and here is a link to a local meetup in the OC: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/1225233-ocre...Good Investing...

For the areas of interest (you are local so I'll say suburbs west of City Line Avenue) there are few and far between -and- have many investors sitting on large sums of cash to jump on anything that comes up (where I would be navigating a reverse 1031.) 

We have tried multiple local collection agencies, and we have not received a penny for over a hundred thousand dollars of bad debt submitted to them.We keep hearing, "It takes time" but it's been well over a year with the most recent one.

I’m not local, so I’m trying to get a feel for what it’s actually like making deals in this market right now.

I would like to speak with local investors, real estate agents, property managers, lenders, etc. from the area.

I've found deals in local online groups on Facebook, simply asking people for what I want. 

Once the time is right, with enough research, I would jump into a market (hopefully local if affordable) and get started.