I also recommend to talk to the contractor in person because there's for us it's a gut feeling if we feel we can trust someGood luck.

Take advantage of it and have your maintenance person or property manager go and check things out at your property. 

Lets goooooo Thanks for the mention @Michael Smythe,G'Day Geoff,We got your investor application and thanks for sending the POF.Our on-boarding is pretty stringent and we are known for turning down a lot of business.This approach has helped us eliminate headaches for the investor and us if we don't see a good fit.I'm looking forward to jumping on a call and discussing further and if nothing else at least pointing you in the right direction.I also suggest chatting with @Jackelyn Lee.

It's about being a person great mentors want to help!

House hacking will also give you some personal "property management" experience.

We file 65% of our tax returns by April 15 (this year we will prepare about 4,200 tax returns).Not trying to brag our team up, but we approach tax return preparation very methodically to avoid the situation you describe.Quick side bar- if you are a new client, we usually charge a small fee for extensions to be applied to your tax return prep fee, but we don't collect the whole fee up front.

Have you seen it in person?

I’m not really a “people person.”A PM can definitely pay for themselves just in higher rents, late fees, collection of damages beyond security deposits, and reduced vacancy.

A more conservative approach would be to sell and do a 1031 exchange. 

I have a few of my higher priced ones in my personal name because you can have up to 10 conventional in your personal name and they have typically have lower rates, so might as well save them for the bigger ones.The majority are in LLC's.