How much should a beginner depend on a property manager when investing out of state?

Hi everyone! I'm Emily Harper from Illinois, USA. I'm here because I want to learn more about building wealth, managing money wisely, and creating a future where work becomes optional. I believe financial freedom doesn't happen overnight. It's about making smarter decisions, learning from others' experiences, and staying consistent with your goals. I'm especially interested in learning more about real estate investing, passive income, and practical ways to build long-term financial security. I've also been exploring some useful tools to help me learn and stay organized: - Google Sheets – Track budgets, savings, and financial goals. - Investopedia – Learn about investing and personal finance. - ChatGPT – Brainstorm ideas and simplify financial concepts. - Floment AI – Explore AI automation tools and workflows that can help save time and improve productivity. I'm excited to learn from this community and hear everyone's stories. For those who have already started their financial freedom journey, what was the first move that made the biggest difference for you?

I read Who, Not How a few months ago and started trying to use it right away. But now it’s actually starting to work. For most of my life, my answer to everything has been, “I’ll just handle it.” That works, but eventually everything depends on you. Over the last few months I’ve been working on changing that. VAs, AI, better systems, and getting other people involved in things I really don’t need to be doing myself. AI has become a huge part of that for me. Scheduling, working with my virtual assistants, massive organization, keeping projects moving, and basically helping me run both my construction business and my real estate business. None of this happened overnight, but I’m finally starting to see how all the pieces can work together and actually give me some time back. Maybe that’s part of becoming a lazy landlord—learning that I don’t have to be the “how” for everything. What are you using right now that is actually giving you some of your time back?

Clearing my phone for more storage I found this little gem. For context my market lists properties on CL & even FB market place- this was a post from CL likely from another investor who's looking out for newbies. Years later the advice still holds: - there's no such thing as a free lunch - look twice before you leap - do not trust always verify

Had to get a plumber out last night to clean out the sewer almost to the city side. We could not find the cleanout and they had to go through the toilet base. They pulled out wood slivers. Plumbers offered to install or find the clean out. Then run a camera to see how bad. And hope that it is based the city side.. 1984 build house. I had a drain snake run through it about 18 months back for kitchen sink backing up. I lived in this place almost 3 years and first week my tenants move in... Anyway not terrible price for the late Saturday night response. Good tip to have 2 plumbers that you can call in case one is enjoying their Saturday.