Mackaylee, Thanks for the response.I have passively thought about that, but now that you mention it, I will seriously look into that as a next step.  

Every system you try will have flaws, or you may salivate over a feature that appears in other software.Some familiar names are mentioned frequently: Stessa, Apartments.com, RentRedi, TenantCloud, Innago, RentManager, Avail, Rentec Direct, Doorloop, etc.I recommend conducting thorough research on each app online to understand their offerings, pricing, etc.

If not, you two are going to buy something out of state with no experience and take a dirty bath.Thank you for your response.I know I have to do my due diligence but I just want to get ahead and get in the game as soon as possible.I did think about house hacking a multifamily but as you mentioned about California, I've seen many people suggest not investing in Cali and I'm afraid that the leverage of the 3.5% down payment would be too big for me to handle the big monthly payment.I've seen a lot of people invest out of state by forming teams, but is that not a viable way to go about investing in properties?

@Bruce LynnWould you be able to suggest any areas to look or even property management companies that directly do sales for turnkey properties like you mentioned?

Like @Greg M. mentioned for those 'in the industry' it isn't really a surprise, nor is it expected to get better for awhile.

As Adam mentioned, larger unit counts mean less face to face but if you're able to it certainly couldn't hurt! 

As mentioned on here, there are links to the BP meetup forum and the SUCI meetup section.

As far as more technical financial analysis you mentioned above, I have found it is easiest to track these items in excel - I just update the workbook each time I analyze.

As mentioned in the title, I have $250,000 to invest.

As mentioned by the others, rent is one of the reasons why a rental can be on the market for too long.