I personally would stay away from Yardi, unfortunately their system is outdated and their customer service is sorely lacking. 

Than this thing about the exclusive buyer agreement to me is great, and I don’t just say that from an agents prospective, people should be able to see in plain terms what services that can expect for what price and decide if that service is worth that to them, just like every other business, problem before is because seller was paying for buyers services it was opaque, now it will be written out in plain terms for everyone to see, the main result of this lawsuit was to put agents more in line with every other service business in America and increase the number of options for consumers, some agents might be paid more some will definitely get less, I think overall average commission’s come down, but again that’s how every other business operates people compete on price compete on service compete on relationships (I can get a better price with some subs because I’m a repeat customer who pays on time and is easy to deal with for instance) and than consumers can decide who that want to go with and once they decide to have that person working for them of course that person deserves to get paid for the time they put in.

When I have called, the customer service hasn't been able to help me.

You get to pick your own dedicated fax number (local or toll-free) to send and receive faxes.

I use Baselane and even though it's very simple to set up accounts and to have dedicated credit cards for each property, I do have to watch very closely that the deposits and expenditures go to the right account so I don't leave myself short anywhere.

From what I understand, you will only be able to attain REPS with your second W-2 only when you’re able to ensure that more than half of your total working hours are dedicated to real estate activities and exceed 750 hours per year.

How could I target insurance claims tenants for my MTR?  For example, would I call the area home insurance companies to notify them of the available rooms?  Or something more creative?

I am not aware of any pm co that will " custom build" pricing for a client. 

Advertising for vacancies is great - it syndicates across many platforms.It can be a little clunky and hard to learn for some things, but their customer support is excellent. 

Would a a virtual call center where they help you manage and train your own dedicated caller work?