I am not seeking to charge each tenant, only seeking to remotely monitor each buildings water usage to identify costly waste/problems early as possible.

I would look at your target and identify what they want besides just the living unit.  

Hey BP,I'm diving deeper into market research and looking to build a reliable process for identifying market metrics, data, and trends.

Our coaches guide clients through an extensive course on investment due diligence to identify their risk tolerance, ask the right questions, create investment criteria, evaluate performance, identify any red flags and have a plan for what to do if an investment doesn't perform as expected.

Other problems resulted when the contractor did not identify in his bidding the missing wiring in the attic space (only the crawl space). 

You are best off getting a plumber out there ASAP to identify the leak and repair it.

So the important thing would be to identify what type of investor you are and then ask for recommendations only from similar people.

If you could pay retail and make a good return, then literally anyone can do it.What you need to do is identify your area.

Have you identified a property yet, or are you still exploring options?

You identify the problem (lack of deposit) during your inspection phase, then hit them with an objection that requires them to pay you a deposit at closing.