I've heard speakers recommend getting it, while it seems to me other investors also do fine handling the call volume themselves.

We mostly develop new (SFR, and small commercial office condo projects which are sold to owner/users or investors (we handle lease up for investors if necessary).

I will make sure going forward I provide a carbon monoxide and smoke detector as a back up even if I have a hard wired system.I can handle losing a house but would never get over a loss of life.

So, I hired a private ERISA attorney who helped with my ROBS implementation and ultimately helped me dismantle it.Guidant Financial is one of the largest firms handling these types of transactions, and they were the firm that handled mine. 

No way for me to pay all utilities, so next comes handling of utilities.

The most recent is one from a reality show that wants to handle the whole episode (yes the pun is intended) I have already sent someone to further secure the property and asked the "reality show" to email me whatever they want to communicate to me.

Jason, your logic seems to be right on but investing that far from home seems a bit risky.If I were you I'd put a little bit more down and invest locally or with a professional company that handles all of that.The company I work with has a lot of people come through as first time investors and we have remodeled properties with tenants already in them paying rent.

Are you financially able to handle any negative cash flow and is your income from job secure?

All maintenance is handled via email from tenant and forwarded over to maintenance.

My company handles this by analyzing returns on a per project basis.