I have some clients who prefer to have a PM for maintenance/contact/rent collection/general management and will place tenants and write leases for themselves in exchange for a reduced rate.  

Typically corporate/bank owned homes are managed by an asset management company.

My wife and I come from a manufacturing leadership and project management background.

As for the rest of it, you can find a lot of useful tips on past forum posts along with podcasts and youtube material on the topic (BP and other RE sources).We've self managed STRs for a few years.

@Patrick Drury what did you think of Propertyware and Rent Manager?

. - PM provides a cash based accounting report every month, for every unit under management, that clearly labels all rent, all expenses, including management fees, and the net directly ties to the amount of money deposited into my bank account.- PM is a licensed handyman, or has them on staff, and takes care of most unit turn work at a reasonable rate. - PM has no breakup/termination fee- PM does not take project management fees, except on large or complicated CapEx projects exceeding $5,000. 

Their pro formas felt optimistic with providing 6% annual appreciation and property management that is only about 6% of rent so I take it with a grain of salt (they offer their own property management services but it has terrible reviews on Yelp so I would probably go with someone else). 

@Jason Brown - I'm a CT based investor, flipper, and property management company owner.  

I want to know more about the area and build a team that can help me purchase and manage properties.   

Do managers that advertise 8% only do 8% when there's a bundle of doors to manage?