It's been my practice to keep these tenants for 3 months and monitor them closely.

Even so, I would create an addendum to the lease that indicates that the tenant is responsible for maintaining the equipment, paying the monitoring fee and uninstalling it when they vacate.

Monitoring the work of a property management company would take time and energy too.

And create letters and forms and mail them out....on and on.And there will be meetings on how to manage all of the above, and who will be supervising the person(s) who handle the calls and the paperwork and the people who come in person....Honestly, having a city inspector would be easier to manage, than having who knows how many independent inspectors who will also probably have to be credentialed in some way, which would have to be monitored and filed.And how do they handle disputes?  

@Terry Brennan, Sounds to me like this is a reoccurring pattern with nearly new tenants.

Even if its different subs, its still my helper labor that I need to pay each day those parties are there and my overhead to monitor the job in pieces rather than a full blown job.Of importance on the bid is an extremely detailed scope of work and fixed price for the work.

It just seems too expensive/cumbersome to really monitor/analyze exactly what you're lending on, etc.

@Skye Anderson I’m not sure why you are counting the first two expenses as reoccurring annually.

tough to invest in my first deal so far way from my primary residence though, I am hesitant to make that first step without complete control and ability to personally manage and monitor the property 

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