Welcome @Carrie La Seur I'm in Colorado but also monitor the Montana market.

They usually have websites where you can monitor how much inventory they have and what they are charging for rent.I keep tabs that way in my town and right now we are at multi-decade low vacancies.

After doing more research, I found that DORA states that a “Real estate broker” does not apply to any person acting personally acting as principal in acquiring or in negotiating to acquire any interest in real estate, or any person acting personally with respect to property owned or leased by that person....However, Article 1 of of the National Association of Realtors code of ethics states "Realtors®, when acting as principals in a real estate transaction, remain obligated by the duties imposed by the Code of Ethics." which includes all of the disclosure requirements.I found that the requirement to run all transactions thru the employing Brokerage comes from their rules that require them to monitor all transactions from employed brokers. 

monitor the gas, water, electric and door locks, maybe even cameras too, (cameras is what i do for a living).My utilities are not separate, so I'd like to monitor them individually, so i might as well make the meters smart.  

This way you can monitor what is going on in the house while still having the mortgage paid off.

Well I appreciate your insults, I'll take them under hard consideration /s I'm not the police, nor do I have any interest in monitoring how people live their life.

This past weekend I installed additional wifi and instrumented my pool to monitor and log the temperature over the internet.I've got two questions for everyone1.

@Joshua Dorkin I like the calculator, but I also liked to go back and change repair costs in the middle of a project to monitor how much profit is left in a project.  

He will also be your feet on the ground, or he will be the person closest to the investment and probably will be doing more of the monitoring of the Property and the Property Managment then you will be doing.Good luck and keep us posted on how and where you find this partner and what kind of property you locate.

You may also consider installing a security system that has glass break monitoring.