Agents tend to be territorial, and I prefer an agent who is more familiar with your target neighborhood.

Thank you to the Brrrr method and a great team, we've been able to grow quicklyUnfortunate though, we have had a less than pleasant experience with our current property management company. 

Of course, with all things, the answers to all these matters will depend on the circumstances.California tends to have more laws on the books and requirements and restrictions that it can be a good idea to form a CA LLC for out of state property so that you as a CA resident are covered, and to try to have your contracts fall under the purview of CA courts.

If I put all of my eggs in one basket (Florida in this case), paid off property and a hurricane blows everything away, FEMA is nowhere to be found and the insurance companies take years to pay what little claims they actually do pay, I suffer through it in a blown out house.

Swann is a large company and are likely easy to find at Best Buy, etc.

It might have been bound but many insurance companies have put those new policies on hold if the purchase has not happened due to the disaster and letting the mortgagee(lender) know that the policy is on hold.

I recently started my own STR management company and I'm thinking about starting a referral partner program for real estate agents.

I don't know anything about this company

They tend to avoid properties that need renovations.

So far, my experience from interviewing several companies in that town is that most of them completely refuse to manage furnished rental.