Developing that trust with someone you don't know may seem like a challenge, but if you approach it correctly, you should be able to achieve a pretty solid foundation of trust.The best way is to target sponsor who use professional 3rd party administration that verifies the sponsor, their background, their track record, and their performance.

This registration will allow them to pull the building permits and hire out the tradesman as needed.Plumbing, HVAC, and electric all DO require trade specific licenses in order to perform any work and pull permits.Hope this helps.

I say that because the market I'm most familiar with has performing properties for 60-100k, with 20% down you could be in a great place with reserves on a 60k property! 

As long as the assets are performing, I'd be surprised if you did not find at least one that was willing to give a portfolio loan out on them.Hope this helps a bit - please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

Most properties are very under rented and don't perform well unless rents can be increased.

Will a property manager perform due diligence on a property?

The ONLY way you (the investor/homeowner) gets screwed is IF you do not perform the proper paperwork, i.e. lien releases upon each payment.

Will perform minor cosmetic updates, increase rents.

I use that term because I'm fully aware of the license requirement for a Property Manager.As a Maintenance Coordinator the individual would be responsible for coordinating any work to be performed. 

For ME (and hopefully at least one other person) allowing myself to accept the idea of being mediocre to be an acceptable person has freed my thinking to expand where I see those top level performers.