Early on, I brought partners on when I ran into a deal that I couldn't finance myself.

I ran all the numbers and it looked like my cash flow would be about $500 to $600.My question is for anyone who do out of state investing is how do you manage it without property manager?

While a syndication is passive in terms of your ongoing work, you do need to make an effort on the front end to make sure you are investing intelligently.

If you plan on going the fund/partner route they can all be extremely passive.

On top of the money we've paid him, we've spent literally thousands stuck in hotels while this project has been ongoing.

I ran into the same issue living in NYC. 

I ran the numbers on 40'ish  properties and there are some very attractive 2-4 units. 

I am purchasing this from a real estate agent, she was initially asking $400,000 I ran my numbers to be able to make 10% cash on cash ROI and said that was my top dollar to achieve this was 370k. 

We had 4 properties that we made an offer on go under contract in one day. 

Utility install is cheaper but you will pay utilities in an ongoing way for STR.