You may able to do non-construction updates to those occupied units and keep some residents, although that sounds unlikely for the scope of renovation that you mentioned.Rod Khleif has a podcast with J Scott Scheel where he gets into creative ways to execute the value add process.  

At first you should figure out what your time frame is and when you need or would like to enter a financing transaction and figure out what each loan product or option requires.Once you have all the options lined up and the requirements for each you can easily execute with confidence.

I'd like to compare bids from a few different companies.Thanks,Andrew Hi Andrew - I have a close friend from school whose family are successful landlords in LA (my friend is an executive in the company) and also do PM for lots of properties they don't own, and seem to have built a very strong business around that.

All things considered, Americans are amazingly adaptable, resilient and innovative people, we will bounce back, and the Real Estate marketplace is no exception!  

It’s my first deal so we’ll see if I can execute

They have incredible reputation in the BP forums and Eric Winkler, who's the Executive Investment Strategist, is awesome to work with.

Even as an american it is incredibly hard.

It will be more based on your deal and on the team you plan to use to execute it since you are an out of state borrower.

Also the big mall (The American Dream) is set to open this coming year.

Execute an operating agreement.