Find a contractor that you can trust and let them do it.

Don't get ahead of paying any of your subs unless you really know and trust them.

Maybe I am a skeptic, but I wouldn't trust someone else research anyway.  

This resulted in my credit score taking a massive hit and having to refinance the original way I thought I was going to and now taking a higher rate than I would have it I just went with it in the first place.The construction itself was pretty easy for me to manage as I have been working on houses for years, but finding good contractors that I could trust to do the work right and for what they say they can do it for was challenging.

If I didn't already have contractors that I have worked with for years, the ONLY way I would consider hiring new ones would be via referrals that I trust and can verify.If you regularly attend REIA club meetings, just ask members who they have had success with on a repeat basis. 

You are placing a lot of trust and a lot of money in the hands of strangers you find on the Internet and you are trusting them to value your big investment.

It sticks in my mind from reading from others on here that Trust accounts are a requirement in CA for deposits.  

Commissions are between you and the seller and for anti trust reasons there is "no standard" commission. 

So much of the management of your manager will depend on the level of trust and the history of execution that has occurred.

Develop your model and trust what your model tells you.