@Charles Perkins is absolutely correct about "collecting all receipts, properly tracking all income and expenses and your basis for all assets properly documented and recorded."

I am trying to automate my data collection through excel.

.✅ More Control – You’ll personally handle tenant screening, rent collection, and property upkeep, ensuring everything is done to your standards.✅ Stronger Tenant Relationships – Being involved directly allows you to build rapport with your tenants, which can lead to better communication and longer leases.Cons of Self-Managing❌ Time-Consuming – Dealing with maintenance requests, late-night emergencies, and tenant disputes can quickly become a second job.❌ Legal Risks – Chicago has strict landlord-tenant laws.

Sit back and collect checks *(or no checks).

With a 9-5 job too busy to catch a breather, being that it will be my first rental property would you recommend finding a property management company to oversee the investment property OR create a profile on a property management platform, I am thinking about Avail unless there is a better platform, to collect rent and hire specialist as issues arise from tenants?

Yes I understand what you are noting, and I believe on the commercial side of things they are typically not putting their names on the docs like you do for a resi loan but just brokering/underwriting it and collecting a fee as a 1099.

Was it difficult collecting rent as a landlord, during 2-hour long gas lines? 

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

Being the highest quality locaitons in all of MS or at least central MS you get the very best tenants.. then my office staff handled the monthly collections.. so hybrid.

More likely, he is hoping to use the extra time to collect more rents and thus more fees to generate the funds to pay his owner clients:(