I feel very comfortable with the screening tenant process and I understand the importance of the face to face interaction.....  

Andrew Johnson “I use Appfolio out of santa barbara, ca its definitely not free and my property mgmt company passes those costs down to me which I think is around 50-60 bucks a month based on number of units under the service.I am able to see all reports from rent rolls, cash flow statements / trailing 12 month cash flow, tenant ledgers, maintenance requests, dialog between tenants and mgmt staff, resolutions to maintenance requests, move in pictures, move out pictures, or video, and many more features.What I like is that it allows the vendors to be in a dialog/text/chat box so they are prepared (vendor) prior to job assignment with lockbox codes, scope of work and pictures before they even go to the site so we dont waste time figuring things out and run up a huge $$$ bill for lack of efficiency.”

Have a look at the videos by them on Youtube to see the reasons the good ones back C Corps. 

I'm extremely handy so the repairs are not the issue, I know the management companies typically do a lot of the tenant interactions which would benefit me since I'm an hour and 15 minutes away, so it would be like I'm keeping a local presence that the tenants are already used to.I've been communicating back and forth with the listing realtor, who also works at the building management company that manages the property.

I helped him to prepare for multiple specific phone calls before they were made, anticipating the situation.I cheered him on when any small thing was done right.I showed him how devastating lack of skills and preparation were to both of us.I gave him a lot of training material.I made custom material and videos for his situations that he was facing.We brainstormed other ways he could improve and have fun at it (watching American movies for 'lingo')'Now, he's motivated every day.

We eventually plan to move the properties into an LLC (or multiple LLC's), but in the meantime, are looking for a way to anonymize our interactions with tenants.Our short term concern is that tenants know our full names, phone numbers, addresses, etc.

They have free videos online to view and at least you will learn the process. 

Walking the property can be done virtually via face time video etc.  

You can check out the blogs as well as interact in the forums.If you like, you can check this quick guide to learn how to use BiggerPockets to grow your business: http://www.biggerpockets.com/bizSee you around!

I will send you over my video we made on wasp st. today for you to check out.