The budgeting piece is definitely more challenging, especially in the beginning when the income stream is inconsistent.

Eventually, you can other buy skip-traced lists or pull them yourself through prop-stream.

That does not mean that individual investors will not get good service or find that rare person who really satisfies their needs and desires as property owner by charging basically nothing, but I have not met a high quality management company that did not know how to structure their company to be profitable...and then be able to provide over-the-top service to their clients.I have consulted with a lot of property management companies and the best of the best are set up as business service providers and most have a structure to capture at least three revenue streams and provide a great service to their clients for each.

Besides our rental properties, our other income stream is a tree service.

Basically, you invest for and ultimately plan to live off of the dividends your investments throw off, much the same as you invest and plan to live off the cash flow your rental properties throw off ... in either case, the thing you care about is a steady and growing stream of income coming off the investment and since you don't need to sell you don't need to worry (as much anyway) about the price at retirement time so long as that income stream (dividends in the stock case) keep on coming.

However, if you can take that money and put it to work making another stream of income then that might be a better idea than just saving some interest.

My wife and I did several deals and found that it was pretty challenging to find a reliable stream of projects.

I am thinking of ways to create revenue streams for the property and one is by constructing a billboard and collecting money from renting it.

Does it make sense to hire a property management company who may have the connections with these recruiters/placement agencies who may be able to help with a more steady stream of mid-term tenants. 

**Management & Maintenance**: Working with PHA sometimes brings additional requirements and regulations, but they can provide a more consistent rent stream.