I find it unbelievable that some of the posts above do not seem to think that a PM company has to actually maintain a property. 

@Bill Gulley I agree with you, but as mentioned you almost have to take into account that she will need to support her fiance and when you add utilities, cost of food, costs for maintaining those pets, gas, car insurance, etc., it does add up very quickly.

All of our properties our well maintained and with good tenants... but with all the cold weather in the midwest I have worried about pipes freezing.

Now on the other hand (which happens to be my luck) you have the one looking for a fireplace, deck, all the upgrades and the rest is down hill as far as them maintaining the property etc.

With you move, have you thought about petitioning to operate as a agent out there; albeit there is no reciprocity agreement between TX and CA, I believe you can still petition in TX, pay a fee, exam and then maintain your CA license while operating in TX.

I currently own a small Asset Management business that maintains foreclosures and REO's for the banks.

This venture is taking a lot more time than I had originally expected to get educated, especially with maintaining my full-time job, but I know that if I keep up with everything, it will definitely be worth it.

They may cash flow for a few years but over time a few hundred dollars allocated to capex is not enough to maintain these properties and they implode.

Would love to know what model has worked for you guys to scale up your business as I try and build up my own from 2 SFH's at the moment, while maintaining some level of sanity...

That said, it does not yet sync with my bank, so I maintain separate accounting in Quicken, which serves as the basis for our tax reporting and for balancing our checkbook, so I’m spending extra time (that I don’t have) maintaining much of the same info in two databases.For lost rent due to vacancy and non-payment, we assumed that we’d have the equivalent of 1 unit continuously empty, and despite all the renovations, we only slightly exceeded that over the first year.