Taking real time notes on deficiencies allows for clear understanding if the items make their way to a buyer repair addendum.

If they have excellent credit, great job history, great references and you met them and got a good feel. 

Ironically the invested capital is often very similar for either. because your either investing capital in # of locations to scale, or investing capital in higher quality ie higher cost assets and operational items. 

I actually plan to put money down, but don't have a frame of reference yet of what a specific % looks like. 

But, on the other hand, if your life is very busy with your w2 job or you have a family to take care of, then maybe having a property management company will do you well and just worrying about larger items.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------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.

Unless you are itemizing your tax return, the interest on the primary is not tax deductible.

Is that what you were referring to?

The loan does need to be secured by the property being improved if we are talking about a personal residence and personal itemized deductions on Schedule A.

Several of us, myself included, were referred by Norada (Marco Santarelli).