@Peter Martin Excellent insights offered by @Lennon Lee and @Brian Burke. 

There are some excellent pros on BP and they'll all likely chime in soon. 

You did say both are excellent, which tells me the agent would do well.

@Ben Bymaster Excellent point raised by @Corby GoadeCollege is very expensive in the US.

@David Zhang these are excellent questions, and I would build a list of questions like these to use with each property management company.

I just can't imagine myself sitting in an office typing into an excel spreadsheet for 9 hours a day and loving it, which is why I've turned my attention to real estate.

Everything has a expected life, everything has a replacement cost, and excel can do the nitty gritty for you.

I think all this would depend on how active or passive you want to be in doing all this.Here are three suggestions:1)You can look for a property manager/active real estate who can help with some or all of these.2) Join a meetup group in your area, It helped me greatly in the beginning as it gave access to lots of people who have been doing this for long.

Contractors can have excellent finances , but they are not the bank or hard money lenders .  

@Bryan Germann Account Closed has given you some excellent advice.