These techniques are as old as the agencies themselves, there aren't any new secrets or methods but technology has certainly come in to play as well.Again, it's not just an interest rate risk that gets a note called, there can be many issues with all loans that carry the acceleration clause.

I own a property management company in Memphis and we are successful through communicating to our tenants and investors, addressing maintenance issues immediately, treating our tenants with respect (tenants may be rude to us, but that does not give us the right to be rude back), providing excellent customer service, hiring good people and paying them well so that I can retain quality talent, creating a positive work place where people want to come to work, having great marketing, adapting to the market changes, organized well and keeping investor cost low through managing our vendors closely and leveraging the amount of business we give them into significant discounts off retail.The only investors that I know that ended up in bankruptcy court were the $0 down investors who did not know what they were doing and figured real estate was buy a house, rent it out and cash the checks.  

The first property is a huge struggle to learn, adapt, DIY, grow, and make mistaks.

Don't try and invent some new system or method of making money - simply follow someone that is doing it successfully to be successful yourself. 

There are so many creative financing methods out there.

I consistently run across students of his that are doing deals and he has some creative methods of directly reaching out to note sellers.

Can anyone offer the pros and cons of both, what method of investing you prefer and why, and any other relevant information?

Having that one additional method of contact must surely be a good thing, even if it will lead to some unworkable leads.

I probably use the worse possible method to collect rents.  

This method requires a little set up time but I found it worth it if you are using Google sheets to keep track of your real estate.