Two of which were automated, no actual person to take to.

As I am very interested in buy and hold investing, I'd also like to automate this investing as much as is reasonable.

Here is how I reached this decision based on my needs:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Buildium - met my requirements for: good look and feel (user interface simplicity), price ($40/mo), cloud-based, work order module, good accounting options, photo and document uploading (leases, receipts), mobile app, allows per owner or per property or per portfolio views of financials, syndication to online rental sites (Zillow, Trulia), and some type of web site automation.  

Dan:Read the Landlord - Tenant statutes for your jurisdiction.Here we are not permitted to accept payment for {residential} rent beyond the next rental period {i.e. month}, so the only solution with someone who wants to prepay their rent is to have them put it in an escrow account and setup automated payments.

Some will say you can automate the process but this will open you up to getting labeled a spammer.

I have things pretty automated now but I have one new tenant that texts me every freaking day about little things at the place.  

Between the tools they give me for screening applicants, and the ACH/CC automated payments, my business takes less than half the time it used to regarding tenant management.

Spend some time to get your online presence setup and automated (FB page, Twitter, Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, etc), but don't spend a whole of time on it.Start attending networking events, collecting business cards and adding them to your database.

I was almost ready to spend that $50.00 a month on this website despite getting automated emails from one of the title companies - I thought this offers more information than them...

In addition to general efficiency, because the property is so far, it makes much more sense to automate payments of all the tenants.