Are you a reluctant property manager?

During the course of ongoing discussions with property managers, landlords, and real estate investors within the iRISQ community, we have happened upon a growing class of property managers that we have dubbed the "reluctant property manager" or RPM for short.
What is an RPM you ask? The RPM is typically not a salaried property manager, but rather, a real estate investor or agent, who find themselves acting as the grudging manager for one or more rental properties. 
Perhaps they are a first-time individual or family rental property owner who quickly realize that they do not want to be rental property owners but find themselves unable to sell their properties without taking a significant financial loss. Perhaps they are real estate agents who, due to the current housing crisis, find themselves forced to ramp up property management activities for their clients to generate income while continuing to try and sell properties.  An RPM can even be a large, experienced individual real estate investor who inadvertently has a couple of rental properties fall into his lap during the course of a broader real estate transaction. 
Unfortunately for many RPMs, the current housing crisis threatens to keep them in their relucant roles for an extended period of time.
We are finding that, although there were significant differences (experience, background, portfolio, etc.) amongst the RPMs that we spoke to, there were some surprising commonalities:

• RPMs often do not often have the same depth of experience as a professional property manager
• RPMs typically specialize in certain aspects of the real estate business (e.g. marketing, sales, maintenance) and want to focus on their speciality
• RPMs tend to range from simple disinterest to fear to downright loathing of the other aspects of the rental real estate business
• RPMs religiously avoid inter-galactic property management tools and usually opt for home grown Excel worksheets
• RPMs want to minimize contact with rental applicants and tenants 
• RPMs want to find a way out of their circumstance as soon as possible

Although we have been tightly focused on serving the tenant screening needs of the iRISQ community, our growing cross-section of RPMs are asking us for more and we are considering how best to serve their property management needs.
So my question to you, is are you and RPM, and if so, what are you doing to improve and/or survive the experience? Also, what kinds of tools and services do you think are essential to making your life as an RPM, easier, better, and more profitable?
-Gary
 

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