IE  appreciation is gambling.. 

Berkadia ReportHere are a couple key points:The multifamily market has demonstrated impressive resilience since the onset of the pandemic; and although COVID-19 continues to drive economic uncertainty across our nation, we have begun to recognize signs of a rebound in the apartment sector.Across our investment sales platform, there’s been a sharp increase in the number of active listings nationwide since the start of July.

We have been long time podcast listeners and knew it was time to get on the BP platform to continue to grow and connect. 

Certainly don't give up... but maybe change your criteria and keep an eye out for something a little bit more safe for your first house-hack because having a stable foundation in a real estate portfolio is the real path to success in investment... risky purchases with big rewards might seem like a good way to start investing... but unless you have a lot of experience and cash in the bank, its just glorified gambling in my opinion.  

@Bruce Dunphey if you're open to larger platforms, systems like Buildium and Appfolio permit semester based payments.

I did expense thousand of dollars on the various platforms to get trained.

Currently Rentec is their platform, and I'll probably continue using it for this property.

Without spending the money on the platform.

I am currently in the process of vetting different CRM platforms to be able to facilitate my outreach more efficiently.My goal would be able to leverage a combination of pre-recorded voicemails, custom emails and text messages to develop an outbound sales sequence to prequalify leads. 

If you want a free platform, CRExi is the current best choice IMO.