I can totally see why you may have felt ashamed, but the reason these forums exist is to share information.

In our experience, the #1 mistake owners make when selecting a Property Management Company (PMC) is ASSUMING instead of CONFIRMING.It's often a case of not doing enough research, as they don't know what they don't know!

It was a great experience as I learned about the benefits of real estate. 

The only thing you need is experience a model, and a team.  

Check "flexible" dates for a house with a pool to weed out the condos with shared pools.

Quote from @John Underwood: Gas heat would require constant tank refilling and it would be very bad to run out in the winter.In my experience, if you have  325 or 500 g tank, you can top off in the fall and be good until spring.....Unless I guess you have a big house and are keeping it at 80d.... 

I was just hoping there was someone that had personal experience with them.

That's been an interesting experience!

Any advice or insights from your recent experiences would be greatly appreciated!

If that's my experience in a small town, I suspect it's probably everywhere.