Lastly, now a days, forms are done electronically, so if the template works for you and you can do it online, the agent can just click a few buttons and you're on your way.

Also it makes a difference is the house is outdated.If it is functional but outdated it will become an expense for the buyer down the road with upgrading to sell to the next buyer.For instance if a home is 1 to 2 years old and you buy you can get away with owning a few years and reselling without pouring a bunch of money into it.If you buy a house that is say 5 to 10 years old and resell in a few years you will most likely have to spend substantial money updating for resale.On the bpo's now they actually make the 3rd party bpo broker/agent (who does not have the listing)sign an electronic from when submitting the report that they have not been influenced nor have they had discussions with any parties relating to the value of the property.The buyers broker,buyer,listing broker,and seller all have an interest to see the sale happen.The BPO person getting paid for a report is just an objective 3rd party.You want to make sure and not overpay for a property.For instance you put in an offer and wait 2 months for acceptance.Meanwhile the market has declined 6% since then and your deal is no longer that great.It's critical to know with a short sale how many mortgages and liens are present.The more to negotiate the more of a long shot of getting approval from all parties and hitting the value needed.

I'm thinking of moving to all electronic PDFs, but the size of the scanned stuff can get pretty large - and the hard copy is useful anywhere in the house, not just wherever a computer is.I don't go to the extreme of photographing every step in the contruction process.

Be prepared for them to only have electronic payment too.

I think the first logical upgrade is the lighting and creating electronic and trackable access.  

The biggest thing for STR is having reliable cleaning crew, everything else is electronic and can be done remote.

Would going through one of those electronic notary platforms allow me the ability to say I do business in X state?

if there was a electronic lock box you can see who did the last showing ( have to ask listing agent) but it would prove nothing, I have had this happen before your  only recourse write up your best offer to lock down the property it is usually done by the buyer to prevent other offers 

You would also need to have your books audited by an independent public accountant, and file a form D with the SEC electronically. 504 Reg D would be semi easier, but also a lower fundraising ceiling.Basically, in the SECs view, if you are a business entity (LLC, LP, C Corp, S Corp, etc) and you want to raise money by selling securities, even if it is only to 1 person, then you need to either register or operate under one of the registration exemptions.Good news is that would be worst case in terms of set up, and you would only need to do that if you were talking about more than a few investors, or if you wanted to grow the company by soliciting additional investments after the company was formed. 

I just rented a condo to four students, all miles away, I had them all sign electronically using DocuSign ... easy as pie.