Sorry for the bad experience and thanks for warning the rest of BP!

I think a 1031 exchange wouldn't be a bad idea if you're not making much on the property, and are worried about big repairs coming up in the near future. 

They may be great, or they may suck as badly as you say. 

I've had some bad experiences with property managers and your advice rings true.

The "good guy" with a gun looks the exact same as the "bad guy" with a gun.

The property age, location, interest rate, etc. will influence whether one cashflows at 2%. 1%, or 0.6%. the rules as someone already pointed out is just a guide.

I always got the impression that he had a bad criminal record or never got his high school diploma/ GED equivalent or some other issue was preventing him from getting a license, because he was basically just brokering without a license but calling it consulting (I don't know any of that to be true for the record, that was just the impression that I got from his comments and might explain why he used a fake name?). 

The PMs in my town that do remote showings have more evictions and bad tenants than we do, and self-showings is one of their problems IMO. 

If you just hire the cheapest or first PMC you speak with and it turns into a bad experience, please don’t assume ALL PMC’s are bad and start trashing PMC’s in general.

Making the tenant responsible for any maintenance is generally a bad idea.