Buy or inherit and hold all their lives while working the properties for income.I've seen teachers, firemen, software engineers and all sorts of people utilize both strategies successfully.

I have seen they have been pushing RentRedi a lot on the podcasts lately and I fell victim to their marketing tactics and checked them out.They seem to have fairly reasonable plans ($9/month for year plan) and offer a variety of features but I am still confused why someone would pay for property management software when there are so many free alternatives out there. 

BTW, been doing software development for ~30 years. 

While this does technically satisfy the requirements on paper, it would never hold up under audit and would be considered evasion/fraud WHEN discovered (not if).

It's a good place to learn more about servicing software and meet vendors, too.

I use Hospitable and a number of other softwares for automation and efficiency.

Here are some things to consider:Most investors don't need software until they have 5-10 rentals.

My profession is software / web design and I am interested in property management and using a property management type software.

You can do a lot of the projections you're talking about in financial planning software, like estimating RMDs. 

This generally includes anything with a useful life of 20 years or less such as software and computers, equipment, specific building improvements and office furniture.When to consider bonus depreciation?