Big picture:It's your lender's job to advise you of your options and what makes sense, to communicate with you about the largest financial event of your life to date (& to respect that fact), and I could go on and on.

You don't want to be dealing with two different outfits and trying to get them to communicate.  

But I learned that having active, constant communication with the other side of the deal is so important, especially for the purchase.

I don't want to micromanage our PM but on the other hand I don't believe I get enough communication coming from them.  

No communication.

I can tell you the BBB is a ineffective as far as settling disputes,it only puts a black mark on their company.The BBB is only a platform for owners and tenants to communicate back and forth with the management company, if the management company even responds.You might want to complain to the person that referred her and ask her if she knows of any good attorneys that specialize in tenant landlord law that can help your mother or if there is a real estate commission that oversees property managers.I would also recommend that you Google for real estate attorneys in the area and see which ones practice for specialize in property management and tenant landlord law.Also, you may want to find out if property managers are required to have a real estate license to do property management in Tennessee as some states do require licenses and other ones do not.

looking for a decently priced property manager or someone willing to handle complaints and communication for my 3 rental properties one is 4 unit one is a double up down and one is a single.

The next morning water was gushing out from the connection and his entire hallway is flooded with water.He's in the process of communicating with the PM to try it get it fixed.Now the heart of the problem is, regardless of whether the PM can actually get someone in to fix the problem, the place is not entirely habitable as the carpets are all soaking wet.

Syncs across multiple devices.  

(I'm a fairly newbie investor, still trying to learn/digest as much as I can about investing, so please bear with me if these are basic questions.)When you invest in a distant property, is it better to find a lender who is geographically closer to you (so it's presumably a quicker turnaround for you to communicate with them), or is it recommended to use one that is closer to the actual property/city/state (since they may be better calibrated to the local property values/appraisals/laws/etc.)?