It all boils down to the track record and reputation of the sponsor/developer.

I haven't seen it proven but I sincerely doubt that having each property in a separate LLC is going to stop any legal action from being limited to that property. 

You only need a place to track tenant information, payment history, maintenance, etc.

There will be a lot of proven people here who demonstrate that you can totally self manage an out of state property.It really will depend on you, the market, the property, and a few other factors some of which may be out of your control.I would not look at PM strictly as a cost, there are a lot of good local PM's who can add value to your property. 

Vrbo has proven better for us.  

Cant remember how many we did as folks have a hard time thinking 30 years down the track.. 

There is no metric of success that can be tracked, that's all fake.

I created a google form that is a checklist and the responses can be transferred to google sheets - I can see running total of hours being tracked.

Any advice on time-tracking system? 

If you are planning on living in the house, 5% down is the lowest you can go.I would also encourage you to start tracking how you spend your money and see if you can cut spending to save more money or find ways to increase your income.