Ultimately, the choice will depend on your goals. 

I say this like I would say it to a friend.House hack is the ultimate start!

I speak to a lot of newer investors that can never seem to simply take the steps necessary to purchase their first rental property, which is frustrating all around, and ultimately a time waste for everyone. 

When I got started in real estate in 2014 and I was struggling with marketing I fairly quickly got really good at driving for dollars and researching properties and ultimately getting in touch with property owners and heirs.    

Consistent steady monthly income is our ultimate goal so we can achieve financial freedom and work on real estate projects without the loom of our own cost of living over us.

Ultimately Im looking to build equity in the home to eventually leverage and purchase another property or sell and trade up (1031).

Give The Ultimate Guide to Grading Cleveland Neighborhoods a read.

Ultimately it is going to boil down to personal preference and what types of rentals you have (As well as how many).DoorLoopStessaLandlord StudioRent ManagerAnd of course the tried and true - QuickBooksAny of these will work for simple accounting/bookkeeping but some will excel depending on if you have short term rentals vs long or a lot of properties.

Your agent is incentivized (and for survival they need to offload as much service as possible) to send you to a call center for anything after the initial sale. 

So in theory the rate should move down to 150-200bps at least for them "to survive".Will the Fed do it ?