Newbies always want someone to cover their mistakes when things don't go as planned.What have you done to solve YOUR problem?

In Trustee sales once you hand over your check its done your money is gone and not coming back unless there was a mistake in the sale or the owner filed a very late BK that was not caught before the sale was cried.

In hindsight I wish I could have parked my capital somewhere besides cash in the interim, and I'd like to avoid making the same mistake twice.

@Chris Kay to learn to properly DIY manage you have two basic options:1) Trial & fire on your own, hopefully not making a major mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars.- Once your time is more impotant to you then the cost of a PMC, you can hire one.2) Hire a PMC to guide you on your first rental and learn from their expertise.- You can buy additional properties and DIY manage those, perhaps leaning on the PMC for any issues you're not sure how to handle on your own.Good luck:)

If you don't know what you are doing there is a greater than 50% chance you are making a big mistake. 

@Spencer DixonRecommend exploring as many sources as possible to get referrals AND cross-reference them to get as much accurate information as possible.Check out NARPM.com, BP’s Property Manager Finder (BiggerPockets: The Real Estate Investing Social Network), etc.Also, encourage you to learn from the mistakes of others - by reading posts here on BiggerPockets about owners not having their expectations met by their current Property Management Company.

If I had tried to scale my business before I understood what was required in hiring marketing expertise I would have made the same mistake as my friend of hiring a “generic” on line marketer and probably ended in failure. 

It would be hard to mistake for a light switch. 

Seems like a big mistake if that were the case.

With your experience, having sufficient capital to cushion any mistakes is important.