Before the pandemic, I was an actor pursuing my dreams, living in LA, and going on auditions.

Any recommendations for software to use when starting out?

First its not my opinion since its a quote taken directly from the FTB, the folks that will audit you, then assess your deficiency and further penalize you if deemed appropriate.

If you would be audited then you may have some of them disallowed.

I recently signed up with Stessa.com which is 100% free software for tracking rental performance.

You can create yourself an excel sheet or use software like rentecdirec.com or stessa.com (stessa is free) The IRS doesn't know how much you are receiving unless your tenant reports the payments to you for some reason or the IRS audits you.

Maybe they’ll give their old forum software to someone who wants to start an “old school real estate forum”.

I have been doing a ton of research on write/wrong ways to do it, property management software, and I think it will be a lot easier in my case since I will be living on the property as well.

I formed an S Corp to do Software Consulting that I no longer do, but my wife starting selling nutritional supplements, so we formed a DBA that goes under the S Corp so people wouldn't be confused with a software company doing nutritional supplements.

I’d highly recommend self managing anyway, as it can be highly automated once set up and running with the right software and systems in place.