I'm the muscle and she's the brains.

My only options are to pay via ACH or check.

They got a good tenant in my condo and all I ever hear is "your ACH transfer will arrive this week."

ClearNow only offers ACH but erentpayments has a number of options but the one you want is the ACH (stands for Automated Clearing House).

Curious, why would a debit card take 1-2 days versus ACH at 5 days from the same account?

Have your tenant set up Cozy, bill with QuickBooks, use ACH transfers, or any of the zillion other automated rent collection methods.PMs are useful because of the volume service they provide contractors (faster responses and sometimes better rates) as well as being boots on the ground (for distance owners). 

I'm trying to figure out if is just easier to open up a local bank account and have tenants deposit in that account, or go with something like RentPayment.com, that allows tenants to pay via credit/debit card, ACH, or cash and they can use their phone, web, or drop cash in person.  

You just need to stay focused and get it done.If the cleanup is a family project then no doubt there will be some that will be thinking picking over cleaning which is fine I suppose as long as they know that within minutes the muscle is coming through and that pile is gone.    

Also, the money can be withdrawn on demand (the FED limits the number of ACH withdrawals to 6 per month) and a balance up to $250K is guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the government. 

This misses the point.I'm thinking along the lines of being the muscle behind an out of town flip in order to earn big returns.