I quickly ran it through the tool  most commercial brokers are using (consumer finance).

From CSLB https://www.cslb.ca.gov/consumers/know_risks_of_owner_-_buil...

I do not have any relationship with Steadily, and as a broker, I always tell consumers to be cautious when looking at the new companies coming out of the gate swinging.

Plus, you should spend an hour with a local lending attorney to understand the basic law (licensing, usury, business purpose/consumer purpose, etc.).Fractionalized lending is a good way to diversify small amounts of money into relatively safe, first-position loans, on local properties.  

Is hiring a property management company the only way out, or are there other ways to manage these responsibilities effectively without it consuming my thoughts?

2) If (1) is possible, how time consuming are the set-up procedures for such an automated rental business?

This negative position can consume years of cash flow to recover.

I do not trust the bond market right now with the FED buying up 1.3 billion or whatever in ETF's and the propped up equities market with their junk bonds.With the government printing, the 33% increase in savings of American's and massive drop in consumer spending I believe rents will stay consistent and rents will be paid.

Millions upon millions of jobs lost "forever" ("exported" to the "third world"), more millions lost half or more of their retirement accounts, creditors slashed and burned consumer credit to the point where, by the banksters' own numbers, some 74% of Americans wound up with "bad" credit (it was only 47% before they did that), ...Now, add in the knee-jerk responses in the lending industry and you've got a situation where only the elite of formerly middle-class wage earners can even hope to qualify for new home loans.In fact, the given the current housing shortage (yet more fallout from the crash), it is ONLY the dearth of lending which is keeping home prices from launching into interstellar space by suppressing demand.

Your vacancy expense could be quite significant and consume all of your profit and even get into your principal.