I would strongly recommend this for any investor and especially for a group of investors.

My wife and I are considering house-hacking in style by buying one of those big, 1920's duplexes west of Hancock Park and renting the other half.

Although, these tools are great for managing tasks/schedules, unfortunately these tools do not have any repair estimation or budget tracking functionalities.Smartsheet/AirTable - Provide spreadsheet style platforms with additional functionalities for uploading documents/images, assigning tasks, calendar, images, etc. 

We wanted to get into real estate investing-- our style is "buy and hold."

-What strategies did you take to test the success rates of different mailer layouts or styles if any and what did you find the most success with?

That same force is not going to be there (as strong) over the next five years.

I certainly have a strong opinion about those.

I get that Schenectady has it's rough patches and not as strong of an economy as Albany but is there something HUGE I am missing or has anyone found the numbers to actually be this good?

I need a strong enough message that will get a motivated seller to call me.

I (and most people on this thread) strongly suggest at least having a chat with a CPA for just an hour.