Tax Write Offs: There are certain tax benefit to house hacking because you blend benefits of primary residence with rental income.

It's very intuitive and has key functions that I really needed like the ability to quickly categorize transactions into categories that sync with your Schedule E for tax time, the ability to set up accounts for each property and sub accounts for specific things related to each property.

Nothing wrong with that if you can avoid owing Uncle Sam a bunch of cash that can be used as a down payment to buy more REI!

Point your missing with tax implication is tax's work in a % basis.

If you identify more than 3 properties that add up to more than 200% of your selling price then you have to buy 90% of them or your exchange fails and you owe all the taxes.

If I pay  his water bill how do I expense that in my tax returns.

Tax question. 

As long as you can hold onto the property you can continue to get the appreciation, principal pay down, tax benefits etc.

It does everything from rent collection, background checks, credit checks, ID verification, tax preparation, lease signing/preparation, etc. 

Sac is great market as well, but a little less favorable for taxes, landlord laws, etc. which is what attracted me to Reno.