That's my strategy, I hold a larger stock portfolio in index funds to accelerate growth, and monitor deals to purchase.

At end of the day the houses are your responsibility and you need a way for your tenants to get ahold of you.The way I look at it is that it makes life easier for me not to have an extra email or vmail I have to monitor.   

Toying with it now, been using Cozy.. but not thrilled with lack of expesense and other things.Setup one main corp, in Wave (our holding corp) and have setup a reoccuring invoice, to a customer (tenet) of the property.

Anywho....The cards monitor your credit the whole time you own them.  

I don't see any point in paying a monthly fee for a foreclosure monitoring service.Even if you're hoping to market to the owners in pre-foreclosure, 1) so are hundreds of other investors, and 2) this information is public record (just do a public records search for a Lis Pendens). www.hudhomestore.com and www.homepath.com list HUD and Fannie Mae foreclosures, respectively (but even these are also listed and sold through a listing agent on the MLS).As far as price, every deal and every property is different.

@Ryan Plesz & @Courtney M.I use local market monitor.

The main challenges facing the multifamily apartment sector that we’re monitoring are the rising costs of repairs and improvements, higher insurance premiums, and increasing property taxes.

You can also put in a camera to monitor if you are really concerned. 

Could it be hard to evaluate a contractor for rehab work and monitor their progress?

I don't always monitor all of these forums on which I post comments, it would be too many.