Since I've been self-managing, my tenant has been FAR happier, and my maintenance costs have gone way down.

Our current tenant has been there a year and a half and couldn't be happier!

Through experience, and depending on the municipality, you will learn to determine what you will need to pull permits and what work you can get away with without permits. also for us that understand how it work :quality permitted work = quality of unpermitted worksubcons are happier doing more unpermitted work because they got more moneythe lesser number of generalist in fixing home, the cheaper the project would be , no need to rush a project.when specialist is needed, that's usually needed in more 'advance' case (like removing the entire plumbing).so in reality , permitted work is just giving more commision dollar the gov and to the GC (that actually only inspecting the work and may design the work, but not really do the actual project) , so easy project unless it's an addition, getting permitted work almost doesn't make sense especially in the country where local gov does not care about it so much. 

I made the move to eXp last year, and couldn’t be happier.

This proved to be another amazing turn of fortune since not only was this general contractor able to complete the work at a fair market value; the work itself was extremely high quality and we couldn't have been happier with the outcome.

I’m personally happier entering into longer leases, even though they purport to offer premiums over market rents.

You'll be much happier. 

Fast forward to today, I have purchased several more properties with OCF, both single family and duplexes, and could not be happier with the experience over the last year.

Couldn't be happier with it.

I'm sure he'd be happier if I could consolidate this quite a bit, and it might save me some money if I can save him some time.