Buying and renovative a $800K home might not be achingly more difficult than an $80K home but downpayment, holding costs, etc. are astronomically higher.  

And how does this work for switching over automatic direct debit/ACH out of the tenants' bank accounts?

Contactless (online) payments is a big deal given the current state of things during C19, especially with the right platform that allows your tenants more options (ie. debit/credit card option, ACH payments, or even expedited payment processing, along with rent/payment due date reminders, and the ability to report positive payments to TransUnion in order to give your tenants' credit scores a boost; this acts as an added incentive for them in the long run as well).

To be honest, my lady wears the tool belt in the relationship and I'm just hired muscle, but I'm very confident in her vision, skills and execution, and I think there's very little that we wouldn't be able to tackle in terms of fixing up our first property.

Rent may be paid:(a) Electronically from your bank account by ACH transfer through xxxxxxxxxxxx.

Often by the time we muscle thru all the paper work the deal falls apart.

It's a small cost, but it has definitely increased my collection rate and reduced my late payments.Addendum: This goes for the note payors that aren't on ACH (automatic withdrawal).

My bank notified me that the NACHA ( ACH administrators ) will be improving ACH processing times to same day or close to same day. 

Not purely as an investment but also an exercise for my design and construction muscles.

Next time reach out to a local mortgage broker and save yourself some head ache.