If you have an aptitude or some background, Quickbooks is great and there are countless resources to learn. 

And countless others approach the task casually and fail because they don't have the sophisticated systems needed to succeed in a chaotic and risk-laden process.

I am glad you have opinions as a NON real estate professional, that's great, just like countless people have opinions on how the Eagles should have ran plays, it does not make them NFL Coaches or intelligent correct facts, there just spectator opinions.

It takes countless hours to locate this information.

I tried to follow up several times with MI and OP, only to be fed the same lies they had told countless fellow investors.

Ive talked to countless mentors, watched countless webinars and I still have no clue.

They are just discovering the beauty of STRs and say they will start using them every time they travel now that they know about them.Of course, due to the economy, there may be a dip in numbers for those that are not well run/managed.Agreed, other factors for why some STR's will take a hit, as well.There is a lot of understandable frustration right now for folks that are: 1) Failing now, even though they did great before on that particular STR. 2) Failing now with their brand new STR, even though they heard from a lot of people that STR's are killing it.Surprisingly, what a lot of people don't seem to grasp is that like most businesses the STR market is a macro niche, made up of countless niche models.

I’ve been reading and listening to countless podcasts over the past few months and and have determined that my initial plunge into real estate should be via a house-hack.

:lol: Good forms and the screening process have saved me countless hours.

Again though - almost countless others should/could make the list