It's painful to get a STR going and optimized, especially squeezing a square peg into a round hole.  

Your strategy is not for the faint hearted and can lead to a painful experience very quickly.

If someone was a complete pain to work with and nickel and dimed every little thing I'll probably send it elsewhere.

@John Warren, ouch what a painful experience for that investor, and a good lesson for all of us to learn from.

Hopefully it wasn't too painful to read!

Hi Biggerpockets I'm planning to purchase 5 units property in Reading,PA or Philadelphia,PA in the next 2,3 months.

Most contractors will complain about this but the few that are professional will already know and can help make the process less painful. 

What you are experiencing is growing pains; I.e. you’re not totally comfortable with your inexperience and knowledge gap of the next level.I will tell you that most brokers do not have ‘off market’ deals, for residential they run MLS, for commercial Loopnet.

If you're looking for feedback, you may want to post the problem or some bullet pain points you're trying to solve. 

Greg:    First, do not get discouraged by anyone, someone else is doing it so you can, not going to be easy.If not done already I suggest to look into this:Enforce that PM uses a great website for rental screening, ones with a background check and choose the best tenants possible.Review you leases to close any pitfalls and enforce the lease to the T.Keep the units in good shape and keep extra cash reserves ( fixing + trip expenses )Tiger than normal lookup on the PM ( have second PM line up ), vacancies, unit showing costs, repairs, fees, etc,  require a once a week normal operations report and a once a month full operations report.Family, friend on virtual assistant that regularly drive by the property and reports to you, or if cash flow allows and deem beneficial you can install security cameras and remote view activity on the property, nowadays there are lots of options.Check if feasible to get a home warranty plan for the units so some pain issues are self-managed by the tenant via a phone call to the warranting companyIn which city/state is the property?