I still have a month to close construction, so I will be monitoring that area.

I would walk the job with him and talk about each aspect left to be completed and a schedule for when they will be completed (not just a finish date), so that you can monitor the progress regularly and see if its being done.

The broker I work for has a good GPS type of search.  

A house sitter to monitor the work the contractors are doing?

I can be there, I can monitor the situation while keeping a low profile.

I also personally utilize Credit Karma, which I believe is the best company to monitor credit with.

Connect with your local RE groups, monitor Zillow and other sites for properties that interest you, maybe write some letters to property owners in your target area and otherwise be active. 

And you have to be monitoring if they pay the taxes or not as a note owner.

Monitoring what has been done, in case something is wrong, who solves it, in case there is a need for an emergency cash, who takes care of it, in case that problem needs to be resolved within an hour, how do you handle it?

@David Dachtera I have been monitoring past unsuccessful bids and have yet to find a pattern.