The Property Manager usually does light cleaning and repairs between tenants.Recommendations or another way to think about this? 

.- They can rent by the room and self-manage to produce day 1 cash flow.- Many of these HCOL areas also have strict limitations on AirBnB or short-term rentals... that do not apply to owner-occupants - thus allowing for extreme cashflow potential for house-hackers.

What is your average rent amount for all properties managed?

I currently work with investors who are looking to begin their portfolio in turn-key real estate and manage for them on the back end so they can still enjoy their everyday lives while having a resident in place paying down their loans. 

The annual 2% management fee comes out before you get your principal back.  

With enough knowledge you can make a educated decision on which approach you take.My experience:I personally don't sign up for any program who take you aside during events and try to sell packages that is just blatant sales strategy.Once you sign up there is every attempt to make you sign for their programs for bookkeeping, registered agent, LLC or corp setup fee which have ridiculous even with platinum membership.Basic standard structure they suggest to take advantage of multiple deductions can be easily achieved by proper education or work with a good firm like https://wcginc.com  who is local to you.A umbrella C-crop to manage all other LLC properties and take advantage of many tax deductions that are not available with a llc, its also used to take losses up to 100K as startup expenses and dissolve the entity after few years.Few LLC entities for investing in Real Estate, etc preferably in Wyoming or Nevada ( you can find many companies online who can do this for $150 compared to anderson $1500-$3000) , they will claim they have a secret Operating agreement which is bogus.They certainly try to take advantage of tax loopholes and claim to be smart people, my view they are just taking advantage of numbers as per their own statements.

Not only do some landlords allow their personal and political ideology to be in the mix, but many do not understand how to manage this population.

In the past two years we have completed over a dozen flips, We are holding 20 rental units self managed and 2 self managed Air BnBs.

So now an employer has the affordability to afford the coach/teacher manager and the over-sized staffing.

You are also going to need to decide how to manage the property.