You are laying the ground work now, to be in mind when they do decide to sell. 

Already capital for acquisition is drying up, now all that has to happen is accentuate the problem so there is a form of mass tenant rent defaults and as groundwork is in place for no remedy for landlords, thus a financial catastrophe situation.

Lesson learned, don't try to take on learning a market by yourself andget help from others after you've done a bit of groundwork.

This doesn’t include getting to the slab or foundation so ground work, permits, concrete and land cost is usually in addition to.

They’d rather pay me a one time fee to do all the ground work such as the items I described in my original post above.

I'm planning on relocating in the next few months and wanted to get some ground work laid out prior to arriving.

In other words, what was the groundwork needed to do this and also what was the downside (if any)?

I guess as you've said, I need to do more groundwork before jumping in as a new investor.  

I thought I'd use this uncertain time to lay the groundwork, meet likeminded professionals who have expert knowledge to share, and figure out if this is truly right for us. 

This is applied as a direct principal payment.Good test to see how easy they are to work with on household projects.This gets an early vested interest in the property, which is the primary principal of this plan.Require reading “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”Must create a habit of reading for 15 minutes every day until the book is done.This helps lay groundwork to understand much of the management process expected.