His responses do not encourage providing any advice.good luck

The companies we've interacted with have all been very professional, and they have appreciated being treated respectfully and professionally in return. 

This is risky, but shifts the burden of paying the buyer agent from seller to buyer, and encourages buyers to avoid tire-kicking.3.

But we also added lease options to our model which attracted a better tenant and lessened the the amount of work that it took to manage the lease option properties.So I would encourage you consider investing in your own back yard before going out of state, especially if you live in North Carolina. 

Again, the BiggerPockets store has some books on this topic, or you can learn about it by watching podcasts, reading blogs, and interacting on the forum.

Welcome, great community here on BP but also in-person in Central Texas, definitely encourage you to get involved in the lots of groups and events in the region!

Quote from @Michael Smythe: @Steve K.Recommend 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.

Quote from @Jr Miller: The lack of human interaction increases our number of showings.

I would also encourage you to get involved in networking groups in the Chicagoland area as well as listen to the straight up Chicago investor podcast.

But I tend to like Bigger Pockets reviews even more because of the opportunity to interact with the author of the review.I will shout out to you in a pm as well.