My PM posts the listing on their site and they have some automated interface that sends that listing to Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads and other sites.

Good places to advertise:  www.ahrn.com (automated housing referral network)' used by the military; free to post. www.militarybyowner.com; this one costs but the cheapest ad isn't very much. 

I get lots of automated responses from the Zillow prospects that either (a) ask questions that are clearly answered in the narrative, or (b) don't actually ask anything (i.e. "1-click inquiry")For all of its criticisms, CL still works the best for me.If you've tried other sources of marketing, please disregard my input. ;)

This will be the first year I try this out with tenants, as a means to fully automate from ad, access, contracts, and collection.

(I don't have the credit to buy my first property yet, so I figured making 10% as a property manager of this house would be a good way to get my feet wet.)I'm planning to use a tenant screening application form/credit check/background check tool I found for free online that automates the entire process, and then — assuming the guy I'm talking to via craigslist passes those screenings — meet him at the property Sunday for a walk-through.

That's why I self manage 75 properties and have automation systems in place such that I know what is happening without going there.I wouldn't look for cheap property management though.

Automation can sometimes lead to the data being jumbled.Consider Premium Listings:When you do a property search on any major website, you will likely see certain properties at the top time and time again.

This time though, I will ramp things up a bit and automate some of the processes (shout out to the book "4 Hour Workweek" for giving me a bunch of ideas).

I have many business friends who own First Gen facilities that are fully automated, and act much like a SF rental. 

So many of these sites attempt to automate the real estate investing process, or lower the barriers to entry.