Seeking Property Managers in Las Vegas, Fort Worth & McKinney, TX

[Jerolyn Dolan]

I'm VERY new to BP (2 days!) and I'm looking forward to learning a lot, and also getting to know some of my fellow real estate cohorts!

Quick background: I live in CA. My husband and I own 7, out-of-state, SFH (6 in US and one in UK). All but one of our SFH's were purchased new in 2003-2004 (and I'm finally ready to get back in the swing and expand our portfolio). I just purchased the books: Long Distance RE Investing (Greene) and Managing Rental Properties (Turner). While I'm waiting for them to arrive however, I could really use some help re:

#1: I have an AWESOME PM in Peoria/Phoenix, for 21 years (I'm happy to share info, if you're interested) but I still have horrible PM's in Las Vegas and Texas (Fort Worth x2, McKinney and Wylie). 

I used to be hands off, but I learned about 12 years ago (the VERY hard way, while owning a 36u apt building in Texas), that I need to be hawkish with some of my PM's or they just hire the easiest and most expensive vendor to do every repair job. Because of this, I spend a considerable amount of time now, "managing my PM's".  By seeking vendors and comparing prices on many of the repairs, I have literally saved us $1,000's dollars. 

Do any of you have recommendations for GOOD PM's in Texas or Las Vegas?

#2: Because I have some horrible PM's (and I've been through a few), I am considering self-managing my some or all of my properties, even though they are all out-of-state.  I'm sure there's a lot of info on the website somewhere re this, but if you've made the switch to out-of-state, self managed, and you can steer me to a good BP article or forum topics re this, I would very much appreciate it.  

Alternatively, if you have some personal advice/experience, I would welcome a phone call to hear how it went or how it's going!