I have seen several fail due to lawsuits and insufficent coverage. 

A couple of questions to ask... do they lock you in for a year or can you terminate the agreement with not penalty if they fail to perform? 

Therefore, that fee is there to make sure that they are getting the job done the first time.Anyone who is saying that they can do a great PM job and won't charge you anything besides the monthly fee, is most likely going to fail out of the business because they won't make enough to stay in business, hire and grow.It is very important to understand all the fees associated with a PM, but I encourage you and your friend to not shy away from a company right away if you see they have fees on other things other than a monthly cut.

STRs are saturated here and failed STRs are starting to saturate the MTR space. 

They are ranked (using the price-and-rent-growth weighting algorithm) as follows:80003804018021980017800108021280239801048024980226Let’s see the average monthly price growth map again with just the top 10 zip codes:Now let’s look at the average monthly rent growth for the top 10 ranked zip codes.And now let’s look at the rent-price ratios for the top 10 zip codes:Now let’s take a look at the prices for each of these zip codes:So far, 80003 and 80219 look like the best zip codes for buy-and-hold strategies close to the front range (if we ignore Aurora, CO completely).What are your thoughts?

Nothing fails like success.3.

I ended up owning about 250 of these.. and having to sell them off taking loss's virtually everyone of them it was a blood bath for us HML in 08 to 2010.. and not anything I want to ever repeat.. those that started lending HM post 2011 have had the rising tide great market situation but even with the good market people fail all the time for various reasons. 

Didn't they already fail the criminal background check just by being an illegal immigrant?

She had a horse boarding/training business that apparently failed.

What if the new tenant cancelled their lease because we failed to deliver a ready apartment to them?