I recommend you set up your BP alerts so anything Chicago will show up on your feed. 

Why did the previous owner sell it for only $85,000?

To avoid going through the same poor experience, keep reading.Even if someone gives you a referral here, do NOT make the mistake of assuming that the PMC will meet your expectations, just because they met the expectations of the referral source.In our experience, the #1 mistake owners make when selecting a Property Management Company (PMC) is ASSUMING instead of CONFIRMING.It's often a case of not doing enough research, as they don't know what they don't know!

But I’m wondering if it would be worth working with a local agent for the first one? 

Hi Luc, welcome to the BiggerPockets community!

However, the real education is at the Broker/Owner retreat, available only for Broker/Owners.

The home is about 50-60 percent complete.

If you didn’t specifically advise on what to do, they drew it a specific way at the end of the day you approve the drawings to be built so it’s not their fault it appears and they should be compensated for the revisionIf it’s something they screwed up (does not appear to be case here) - then they correct their error

Now if try tailing the entity on deed "up-stream" come to find it's a meandering trail of breadcrumbs, come to find they themselves are debt loaded via notes on properties to other entity, that again is a meandering trail ending in WY entity behind a wall of ownership interest in such so never get peoples names.  

Then partner up with these people.