I'm concerned that if I place an ad to find people who will work on an hourly basis (in the area of the property) that I might have a hard time finding people who can reliably respond to emergencies during off hours, but I can't afford to have someone working full time or with standard on-call rotations. 

Buyers receive a letter requesting the information from the sale but they are under no obligation to respond.

Hiring a Property ManagerManaging Yourself:Control: You have direct control over tenant selection, maintenance decisions, and overall management style.Cost Savings: You save on property management fees, which can range from 8-12% of monthly rental income.Challenges: Being across the country means responding to emergencies or maintenance issues can be tough.

I responded accordingly, "You".  

I sent you a message with my email, please respond and I can provide more details about customizable funds.

The best thing to do would be to consult an attorney, but likely, that is not an option for everyone starting out.I'm not an attorney, and this is not legal advice, but some of the information that we include in our contracts is:- A clear scope of work - Payment schedule / Milestones- Change order approval process- Allowances for finished materials- Reasons to terminate the contract- Expectations for start date (X amount of time after final plans /permits are received or X amount of time after the contract is executed)- General schedule and timeline (This is where you could specify an end date - however it may be better use incentives rather than liquidated damage if your general contractor is late - we've done both, but found General Contractors respond better to getting something if they get done early instead of being punished for being late. 

When I quote someone, I typically delete their entire response and just leave their name so everyone knows who I am responding to.I agree with the others.

Tyler,I thought I'd respond with some advice, but in truth I'm not much farther along than you are.

My issue (one of many) with my current PMC is that they have failed to get me even a single tenant in almost a year now and keep telling me that they don’t understand what the problem is, but literally 30 minutes after I started advertising my units myself, an eligible tenant responded to my own add.

And bigger tariffs that he's supposedly going to roll out is going to make things worse.And then what happens is that the other countries respond with tariffs of their own and that costs businesses here to lose revenue because now their goods are more expensive with the added tariffs in those overseas countries.Again, I think there is a place for tariffs.