They push me to to get out of my comfort zone and are a sounding board for ideas....and they don't cost me money.

Buildium has way too many unnecessary features at a cost until you have at least 25-50 units.I like Zillow for background, credit, income verification because applicants can pay for it all up front and before you even show the property to someone and waste time you already know if they are qualified or not.

I would ask for verification on the payments made hopefully the previous owner was using a service like cozy or rentReady that will easily show you. 

Right.When you are buying for rental, you have to do 1,000 verification and this should be number one on your number list.For me if I buy a condo, I call their HOA officer and ask this specific question. 

Hey David, Just out of curiously, where did you hear about the old court house being converted to to luxury apartments?

In regards to your sign up question, the only issue is that most payment services, including ours, requires some type of bank account verification before a tenant can submit an ACH payment.  

I would to to hear from others.

Change that by using things like transactional funds or subject-to to purchase and sell as you normally would. 

The lender wouldn't need to ever look at any income verification documents.

Cash>Check>ACH>Credit card.Credit card: Disputable up to 90 days by the click of a button with minimal verification relative to the other methodsACH: Disputable up to 60 days by informing the bank in writing (and with a higher level of verification by the bank)Check: Disputable up to 30 days after the customer’s bank statement is issued and requires the customer to prove fraud or identity theftCash: is king - however the chances of getting your tenants to send you cash every month is nil The goal of any investment is to reduce risk (or be duly compensated for accepting additional risk).