Which you can do and really dedicate yourself to, and gobble up every bit of knowledge every day.

In my specific case, I'm looking for keyless entry options that would be good for 8 units in one building, so the ability to manage all of them from one platform is important.

For reference, a basic website on an all in one platform, our labor base rate is $250.

@Darius Ogloza Exactly, think about it as HELOC for rental property owners, and rather then equity-based, it would be based on the AR(account receivables).Thing is HELOC is mostly for owner-occupied borrowers, it requires a second lien, and it's a lengthy process (weeks), What I'm thinking is a line of credit that is being approved and funded within 48-72 hours, no lien on the property, just general recourse on the borrower or routing rent payments via the lender as a processor (remaining funds go to the borrower's account so all expenses can be paid as usual).It's quite similar to fundbox, blueline or clearBan: but this time dedicated to RE landlords.

There aren’t any dedicated str mgmt companies in this market though.

Check out LeadSherpa, it is a better platform.  

Prior to jumping back into the job force, a majority of my time has been dedicated towards learning the ins and outs of real estate investing. 

For example, if you login regularly to a crowdfunding platform like CrowdStreet you will find them there.

Is it a mistake to commit the buyer to a specific smart home platform, when they may prefer to use Alexa or Siri instead?

The skip tracing aspect (phones and emails) of these leads often goes through a 3rd party platform.