I know it will be cheaper to do it myself, but I don't have the confidence that I can pull this off efficiently and I need to make as few mistakes as possible. 

That's correct Wendy - I had a friend in the state there and relied on him and the home inspector, and I should've gone a different route.BUT - all mistakes are learning lessons and I've learned a ton from that property.

In our experience, the #1 mistake landlords make when selecting a Property Management Company (PMC) is ASSUMING instead of CONFIRMING.

As a person with extensive use experience of such, I will say at worst would take maybe as much as 1hr to track an heir, emphasis on "an" as the correct tool in this arena, or more specifically the one I used, I could dig up the last 30 years of a persons history, every address, co-habitant, everyone in 1 degree of separation, there 30yr residency/ work. sphere and so on and so fourth. 

Let it be a lesson though and not the end of the road for you because we ALL make mistakes and based on what you said it sounds like you make a few rookie mistakes.

Although it went smoothly I was prepared for worst case scenario with local lawyers lined up incase.

Learn from your mistakes and move on.

The agent they hired made 14 mistakes in the marketing of the property. 

Don't make the mistake of penny-pinching so hard that you lose sight of all the time a PMC saves you!

My plan will be to flip this one as well as a commercial deal, once new tenants are in at market rents, estimated valuation is around $620,000 on a worst case scenario, with pro forma rents being lowest for that area.