Plus you’re optimizing for materials cost by reusing and buying some used stuff. 

Do you have a contract and collect rent separately for each person?

I am new to RE investing, and hoping to tap the collective power of this awesome group in starting my RE journey.

There are other free services out there as well.If you only have a couple units and that is all you want and you never plan to hand off property management then you can probably just collect checks and have tenants text you.Personally I don’t like tenants texting me issues, they are too easily missed or forgotten about.

They will think you are running a tenant screening/tenant application fee collection scam. 

I pay 4000 a year in taxes for a brand new single family home I can only collect 1100 a month on....4 months of rent to just cover property taxes,  insurance is another 4000k.... that's 8 months gone.  

They collect a month of rent and then walk away, whereas a property manager has to deal with that tenant for the next year.

In particular:(1) Should I hire a law firm or collection agency to facilitate the transaction?

The reason is for that amount, that's all the attorneys would do on a contingency basis, and they only charged a fee if they collect on a lawsuit, The customer then asked if I would pay him a few dollars instead.

This of course, would need to be defined in their lease agreements and would also require more work collecting those payments.