We bought our small holding at auction, couldn't sell our current house in time (I think you have 28 days after the auction to complete) and so had to let our old house out. It has it's ups and downs but doesn't everything when you are dealing with people!!
We went through an agent on a full management service (they run checks on prospective tenants, collect rents and do 3 monthly checks on the property, they are also the tenants first point of call) We have had to keep on top of the agents to make sure they are doing what they should, send us relevant paperwork etc (are they a different breed?
) but it does lift some of the weight from our shoulders. They take 10% of the monthly rental for doing this. If we were to do it again I would probably employ an agent to advertise and do tenancy checks but would then take on the management myself. I guess it depends how close you are to the property and how much time you have.
Happy to help if you have any queries!
Good luck