Considering remotely self-managing 4 rentals, looking for advice!

[Alex Gronbach]

Hello Biggerpockets!

Looking for some wisdom/guidance as my Realtor today (who also works as my property manager through a company I use for management) came to me today with a proposition to "go rogue" so to speak and break away from her property management company. Allow me to preface this with the fact that I completely trust my Realtor and she has been my MVP of my local team and the only reason I've been able to be successful. I'd follow her anywhere, she's really amazing! Definitely not a scam, they're changing her comp structure and really screwing her unfortunately so she is now looking to quit the property management company they use.

Her suggestion was to use her (or some other management company) just to place tenants and write the leases, but do the day to day management myself. I currently pay one month's rent for a 12-month lease as the finder's fee (seems pretty standard), but learned today that she only gets 50% of that first month's rent as her cut. We started talking and it would make a lot of sense for me to give her 75% of that first month's rent payment to essentially do what she does for me now (take pictures, list & advertise, screen potential tenants, draw up the lease) but it would also be saving me 25% upfront and saving the $80/month per property I pay for management (fought hard to negotiate a flat rate on that).

Looking for guidance from those who have made this transition or are knowledgeable in self-managing multiple properties from at least a state away (or further than just an hour drive or so). Specifically, how do you collect rent? I use Stessa for all my accounting already, and that's pretty great with all of its reminders, but don't know if I should just open a new checking account and have them direct deposit / billpay into it? Or if there is a more eloquent tech solution out there? How do you handle emergency maintenance requests when you're away from your phone or sleeping? Any other pitfalls I should watch out for?

Thanks in advance!