My thought would be going through the listing agent might be your best bet as long as you are confident in knowing the contract and other addenda. 

After meeting with them, I was confident I could invest there.

Luckily, with my extensive (almost obsessive) education of REI, I now have the confidence to pull the trigger.

Me personally, I have been implementing better habits in the morning so that I can wake up not only driven, but grateful and ready to attack the day with confidence!

Lastly, I have refi my primary to cash out to pay off my other rental, so I can put a commercial line of credit on it, to be in a position to buy other properties if the market drops. ( lots of evaluation and consideration to be clear and confident in that move). 

If you take 10% of that and it's greater than the annual PM fee savings compared to a company with R&M markups then you can be fairly confident that, on the average, you will loose money every year (again, only looking at this one issue is not a wholistic approach to comparing options but will highlight the costs aspect).

This has given me some confidence that it is manageable with these tools. 

If I end up taking their role in this deal, I am confident that I can execute this business model better.

They have paid their mortgage on time and I have reviewed their financials so I am confident they will continue to pay rent.I am unable to secure a mortgage at this time because I am in the process of refinancing my house and my lender has advise against doing anything.

You may think it attitude, or a bit cocky, in truth it's confidence, that's who you want to hire, the guy who know's his sh#t and tells you how it is.