Yeah the reoccurring auto debit bank account transfers is one huge key to scaling in my opinion.  

I know it does  not seem like a lot but if you have a business and you intended to scale that business then all those minutes add up.We manage over 500 homes.

The trouble would come from any attempts to scale up.To read more on Paul Feldman, click here for a NY Times article

For them, they'll just be scaling up.Also, signs are cheap and just used test the waters and see what kind of preleases they can get.

I could just get 9 more properties and pay them off one by one, but I'm greedy (I have no problem admitting that) and I'd like to scale a bit faster. 

On a small scale, find a make and model that you know will do well here and you're comfortable learning about.

I have in mind that once I scale up more and more, I'd like to try and stay below 5% of the total rental income to pay someone to help me.  

It might be something to do with larger-scale economic factors (city heavily relies on a large employer/industry sector), or might be due to some sort of new local issue, or, again on the employer bit, maybe there's a large number of military families living there that are being transferred (I'm not military, that might not be realistic).Whatever the underlying issue is just do your due diligence finding out what it is.

This way, once I scale, my business model will be in place and I will not need to hire a PM company.  

I also own a property management company and we've had good (not perfect) success with long term tenants on a bigger scale.