Managing properties yourself from out of state? Anybody do it?

[Jack B.]

Who here does it? I'm considering moving from WA to TN. I would have moved years ago if not for my rentals. I have 6 houses here and I manage myself because the cost of a PM is outrageous for the minimal work they do. I'm not paying 50K a year for someone to show a house during vacancies...

Last year I had 3 units turnover, about 6 service calls. That's not a ton. In all but a couple cases, I had a contractor handle it and tenant gave them access. A couple of cases I went down because the tenants were violating lease terms.

Since I don't have a TON for rentals here, rather than selling and buying in TN anew, I thought with the fairly low volume of involvement, I either:

A) Pay a friend a nominal fee periodically when there is a vacancy to show the house and to do basic maintenance tasks as needed. I have one such friend and although he is not the most on the ball person, he is dependable and currently helps me out with some of the labor.

B) Fly back here to deal with issues, living out of the house if there is a vacancy or getting a camper van that I keep at a friends (I love camping). 

C) Hire a handyman with a monthly stipend that he gets even when there is nothing to do. Trouble with this is, contractors are notoriously unreliable. The guy I had used a few times for projects took another more valuable project after tearing out my walls, leaving me to end up drywalling my walls myself (with help from my friend above). 

D) Option I'm not considering?