Most of these online platforms can be set up to send automatic late fee notices and payment, archive tenant contact info and accounting.

If you look on Etsy, people sell some great spreadsheets that are already made with graphs and add up all the numbers automatically!

Perform the same task in each app to ensure a fair comparison.Load a property with pictures and details.Market that property.See what your marketing looks like from the public's perspective.Submit a fake application to see how easy the process is.Run a credit/screening report on yourself.Enter a maintenance request, assign a vendor, and attach a fake invoice.Enter charges to the tenant's ledger.Enter recurring charges and automatic late fees.Sign documents electronically.Run owner reports.After testing a few apps, one should clearly stand out.

At the end of the lease, do I have to provide a "notice to vacate" or does the lease expire automatically since it is a fixed-term lease? 

I use Owner Rez and the Schlage Encode integrates so that the lock automatically assigns a code to each reservation and includes it in the check in instructions.

After the fact, you identified red flags and now understand why someone promoting on BP is no different than someone posting on other social media pages...it shouldn't automatically lend credibility to the company simply because they pay to promote themselves on BP.

Whether a property is listed publicly or privately doesn't automatically make it a bad/good deal, it just affects the visibility of the deal and more importantly: how motivated the seller is. 

I don’t see a good reason to automatically offer an annual term lease.

Enter recurring charges and automatic late fees.

I also always include an automatic release mechanism in the addendum if XYZ doesn't happen by a certain date.