I’ve been in the real estate business for over 20 years, and I’ve seen my fair share of complex deals.

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

With sites like zillow and refin the owner can go see "market value". 

This is fantastic advice thank you so much for sharing your insight!

There are a ton of good articles on this site about "House Hacking" and my good friend @Ryan Thomson knows more than anyone I can think of in the space.

If you wouldn't mind sharing, what are the top 5 time consuming tasks you come across? 

@Gregory CallowayPay the contractorOnce you try to save the few extra dollars by buying material , you’ll eventually pay more than initially quoted because of acting as the GC of the job site .

I just don't see me sifting through leases and figuring out move in/out dates as a good use of my time.Perhaps I will just send an email to each PM requesting the current vacancy rate,  and their associated units along with the rest of my monthly reports.Thanks to anyone that wants to share their experience in this tracking.Cheers.

For residential, compare the actual rents (*not* rents suggested in a proforma) with properties currently for rent and with historical rents for similar properties using sites like Zillow and Rentometer.

-Can anyone share their personal experiences investing in these areas ?