I have been doing this for 20 years and honestly to say you can raise rents ~110% a whole year from now where things are happening at lightning speed, most of which we have zero control over seems a bit idealistic to me. 

Please control yourselves and refrain from making personal attacks in this or any other thread.Trolling is also against the rules so lets keep things civil here please.

In any case, I was sitting on cash ($150K +/-) thinking/hoping the real estate market was going to adjust (downward) to make room for me to make a move, when Covid hit and everything got out of control.

You personally would not receive any benefits at this time, but you control the asset and it would grow tax-deferred for your future use. 

Her family grew up poor so she is very controlling of the money.

My view is units that are rent controlled (all multi units) will have multiple years (probably at least 5 years) of max allowed rent increases to compensate for the increased risk and higher property values. 

Just come experience it for a week and dive in.Living and owning a business in our state Capital - Wichita and Sedgwick county are not perfect but they are run far far better than the corrupt bozos that control Topeka/Shawnee county. 

I have yet to even decide WHERE we would like to invest, because NY clearly isn't affordable and NJ has similar rent control laws to NY which we don't want to get started with.

Utilities will fluctuate also based on occupancy, pool/spa on timer, owner-controlled thermostats, is garage a/c, if its only 4 beds it could be single-story, how old is the home (energy-efficient windows), how many square feet, how old is the a/c and is it the correct tonnage for the property etc....When purchasing these, that information should be readily available via the seller or property manager.

He seem to be excited about using Zelle, his control over it, while I prefer the trouble free environment provided by your service where the tenant knows he should have money in the bank by a certain date.Haven't checked to see if you have a mobile app yet as everybody has a version now and pushing it.