Out of State owner seeks your advice on showing property and rental apps

[Steve Tokita]

First time on this forum, and just introduced through two books I just read by David Greene and Brandon Turner.  I am 1600 miles away from three residential properties I just purchased in Jackson, Mississippi.  The properties range in price from $160,000 to $250,000.  My original plan was to utilize a real estate agent to be my property manager that I met through a Dave Ramsey referral program, but I'm exploring if I should attempt this on my own.  Also, since the books were several years old, I'm not sure if there is better software or apps like Zillow to use for managing a property.  

If I do this on my own, how would someone show a home long distance.  Smart locks connected to wifi?  Or would it be better just to have my agent show and list the property? 

Do you recommend I property manage this myself, or would that be a bad idea.  I have had my property manager paid to oversee the renovations.  It was taking weeks and months to make small progress on these properties, and I was getting discouraged at the lack of progress.   It was painfully slow, but I didn't know if that was the norm.  Maybe I need a new property manager.  She tends to take several days before she finally requests a contractor to go out and see the property to make a quote, and then another week before the contractor submits their quotes.  Finally, I used the Thumbtack app, and I made more progress in six days than I did in the past 75 days on painting, flooring, lighting install, HVAC repairs.

I currently use apartments.com for my automatic rent collection, so that system is helpful.  Is the Zillow system good for something like this? 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!  Thank you!  -Steve