With a bit of planning and good operations, one can easily manage 20 to 30 properties without an assistant, with less than a day or two a month.There's lots of automated ways to check on rent, make deposits (my tenants deposit directly into a bank account), receive maintenance requests, have maintenance done, etc., etc.One thing I could argue is to have your tenants ONLY email you, especially for maintenance requests, and that email goes directly to the vendor that you have set up to handle it.

This coming weekend we were thinking of come out and checking the neighborhoods of few zips where there were houses we liked on MLS.

I know it was kind of a hectic post, but I am all ears and appreciative of anyone who takes the time to read this!

Of course, I have to go through and double check it's work.

With that kind of equity you would be to find a newer, nicely performing Quad in a market that is appreciating. 

Are there tools (i.e RentRedi) that you recommend using for LTR tenant screening, rent collection, background checks, etc?

Don't chase the market to the bottom.And Check current comps before you make that offer and close on that new purchase. 

Just nature, life NO media of any kind at all. 

We’ve also found that at least one of the authorities (Jefferson county) started to run some kind of property specific rental comps which can also affect the max they’re willing to pay. 

You can setup a "guest mode" allowing the guest to enter their check-out date.