Real Estate Investing: Is Hiring a Property Manager a Huge Waste of Money?

When you buy your first investment property, one important decision you need to make is whether to hire a property manager to find tenants and run the day-to-day operations, or to self-manage your property.

Obviously, self-managing is the more economical way to go. Paying a property manager is one of the largest ongoing expenses of owning a rental property. And there are some obvious situations where a property manager can be the only logical choice — like if your rental property is far away from where you live. But if you are buying a rental property in your local market, how should you decide?