If the software is not simplifying your life or making you more accurate, you shouldn't use it.Software does have extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

Remember, I sent a signed and amended the agreement on November 28th, sent it to them for signature, received confirmation of their receipt, wired funds, requested multiple times they send me the fully executed agreement, never received a fully executed copy back from them and finally was questioned by them yesterday as to why I altered the agreement (meaning there was no meeting of the minds since it's therefore proven that they didn't even look at it).I have rescinded my offer to enter into a contract with Estate Legal for lead generation services and am now seeking a full refund, including my cost of wiring the funds. 

I sure don't want to consider myself an abuser of this forum, and therefore don't see that as a proper solution.Nonetheless I do agree with @Joshua Dorkin that it can disrupt the flow of conversation... but I don't agree that most forums act this way; I've been a member of multiple forums, and most of them have options to delete posts... rather than contacting support or marking your own post as abusive.I digress...

I heard about bigger pockets from a friend of mine that has successfully built and rented multiple properties in our area. 

When you add that: "The downpayment and closing costs would be one large hurdle"; I can't tell if you can only afford to do this once (thus tying up whatever you have saved) or multiple times.  

Over months of working with her, I encountered severe issues, including:Lack of Communication & Accountability – Corina ignored multiple emails for weeks or even months, providing misleading or vague responses instead of real updates.

I've had a change order for 14k and anticipate another may come when the canal line is cleared. one of the biggest things has been holding costs with my particular loan product, plus multiple extensions with multiple extension fees Thanks for sharing.

At the beginning, it may be difficult to get a more expensive property that will appreciate well and so your choice is go with the cheaper property and get cash flow until you can sell and upgrade, or wait for a really good deal which you may be waiting for quite a while and its possible that you will have spent so much time waiting that you could have purchased multiple cash flowing properties by the time you get a good appreciation deal that you can qualify for / refinance after the rehab. i know anyone can go out and get seller financing deals, HML, flip to build capital or whatever the case may be I am just saying sometimes those will be harder and could result in less deals overall. 

Quote from @Melody Bohannon: Prior to my investment, I asked my advisor, Mark Zabilowicz,  multiple times about the holding period and was consistently assured that I could request the return after six months.

. - I've had multiple vacancies, including one where the tenant left after a year and cost me $6k in turn costs.