My effort driving there would have been useless.My advice, if you have some bandwith in your cash flow, you should just call a handyman or have your tenants do it (and give them a rent credit) .I had one of my tenant install to 6 fence boards (literally just buy the materials at home depot and hammer nails on the fence posts).

Key being something you enjoy or have a lot of interest in.

Or cash for keys.

Get a good QI on board and interface all of you together as you go forward. 

@Daniel Brown: Sure... those are the times I feel patience is the key. 

Or only covered part of the replacement.It also took them 3 months to replace a non-working stove (faulty circuit board) so they kept coming back and ordering different parts. 

Key Criteria - Location, Location, Location.

They key is to get properties that have at least some cash flow.

In our initial investigation we determined that we didn't want to invest locally since we live in a economically depressed area with limited employers, so we did the easiest thing and bought a turn-key property in Birmingham.

However, they have only showed it 3 times in 6 weeks. today I went to get a key to show it my self and they said they were going to get a lock box "so people could self show" but all their lock boxes were being used.