So I want to generally understand a deal before making a trip.

Similarly, my first trip to Atlanta was for a Atlanta Hawks basketball game to celebrate my friend's birthday.

I spent some time in Sunset beach on a golf trip.

Like @Andrew Syrios said maintenance is typically an hourly rate (they might have a flat fee for really small issues to justify the trip); however, the pay for a project thing you mentioned would be a big job (typically capital improvement not repair expense) and for that you would take bids from different contractors and then try to keep them on budget while getting all the work promised actually completed and hopefully on time.

If you shoot from the hip on those you can really trip yourself up. 

Reasons for the change were due to my plans to keep scaling,  mitigate Seattle regulations,  desire to be able to go on vacations and trips again without leaning on friends/family to keep eyes on things,   and because I've now got enough cash flow that I'm willing to accept the expense.All my properties so far were MLS listed and I worked with agents.  

This is by far my favourite real estate website.

I just got back from a trip out there.

Apologies for the confusion, I saw that you were in North Carolina and would be in Wilmington for the weekend and assumed it was a business trip to the East Coast!

If you want more security, I would make a trip to the city and meet them face to face and talk about your concerns.