I have read many threads on here about people wanting to start property management companies and I always enjoy reading posts about investors who started their own PM companies from the ground up and had tremendous success or who had a hard time.

This forum, community, podcast, has been tremendous

It is tremendously sad that they are in this situation but unless you are willing to adopt them for the rest of their lives you cannot make yourself responsible.

I'm seeing a tremendous amount of large commercial and residential properties being listed (and frequently sold) for insane prices ($20M - $200M) throughout the country.

I would be hesitant to put one in though unless the tenants have brought it up with you, or you truly believe it will add tremendous value to your property.

Over the past 10 years those three Western states have seen tremendous appreciation so make sure you can weather a downturn in values.

You will save a tremendous amount of time and effort if you keep extra paint or save the paint code or at least have a place that can color match a sample with some degree of accuracy.

As an example of why you can't predict appreciation goes up with a single factor like interest rates, just look at the last 10 years - most areas have experienced tremendous growth in appreciation yet interest rates have stayed low.It sounds like your goal is to buy and hold, in which case I would just focus on buying in good locations, make sure you have strong cash flow, and lock in your interest rate with 30 year mortgages. 

He’s been a tremendous help already.

That will be a tremendous resource for you starting out.