Which one of the core 4 to look for first?

[Irvin Nguyen]

Hey guys, 

Trying to get into out of state investing as the state (Oregon) I am in isnt so landlord friendly. Currently have 1 rental that used to be our primary so all I had to do was look for a property manager. When looking for out of state, would you guys rather find a good PM and go with the agents they recommend? Of course I would still do my research on the agents to make sure we are aligned and on the same page etc. Or would you rather find a good agent then try to go with his recommendations for PM? Reason why I ask this is because I was looking into some places where the agents were highly rated on zillow etc. but the PM they recommended had really bad reviews. Its a littler harder to trust when it involves out of state stuff since I wont be there to look at houses in person, relying on other people etc. I know it all comes with risk of doing out of state stuff but  I would like to cover all my bases to decrease the chances of that happening to me. I guess long story short, is there a  1 right way to go about it? Or is it all based on preference? Based on what I have seen so far its a toss up between PM first or agent first.