Understand the fees involved and calculate the total cost for an entire year of management so you can compare the different managers.

-Ray (see above) is the man and can get you hooked up with great rates and low-fees!

Hi Danielle, As a property manager, if you were my client, I would recommend that you incorporate a monthly flat rate utility fee into that tenants lease.

What do I do differently to "earn my fee"? 

I do / done many rent to own (contract for deed) and a few seller finananced deals where I keep the note.Why not in parallel use a flat fee listing on MLS too?   

We already paid them a pretty sizeable entry fee ($30k) to cover some of their equity and debt in another project.

Then do a thorough research on tenant applicants (note: leaving this to a PM may be hazardous to your financial health) and choose the one that is most “stable” with the best potential for long term tenancy.This advice is contrary to maximization of rental income, but IMO will reduce expenses of tenant turnover, property damage, property management fees so much that the difference in bottom line income will be quite small.  

It is also important to consider the transactional fees associated with originating the HELOC, whether an appraisal is required etc.

Purchasing a new primary and turning my current house into a rental and looking to hire a PM but some of the fee's seem high. 1 quote - 100% 1st/month rent if i self-manager, or 75% 1st/mo rent and 10%/mo for PM to manage.Again, im new to this but from reading and talking to people there is a typical finders fee ~1000$ and 10%/mo rent if the PM manages. 

I'm looking at it on my rental software and there is also a fee for it which is the main deterrent for me currently.