I have separate workstations such as Accounting, Rental Portfolio, Marketing, Development, etc which are all tweaked different to satisfy needs and ultimately reduce waste so i'm not inefficient.Sample functinoality that I useCall comes inautomatically parses out number, updates phone number fieldautomatically sends me and email as well as  my partner and email with it auto on a "follow up needed" status.Creates task for us to do this within the day(at this point we've done 0 actual work, all automation)once we follow up, we move it to dead, possible lead, etc which then have a series of automated actions that require little or none of our timeI've found that podio can do this for all areas of your business and you have to set the standard with contractors and have them utilize what you tell them to.

My preferred methods: Money order not likely to bounce difficult to cancel (although many have limits) Online rent collection easy to track auto-pay to reduce late paymentsDirect ACH transfer into your bank account

I think dealing with a lot of tenants, there are great applications to reduce time wasted with flakey folks.

Your silent partner, the IRS, just reduced their stake 22%!

For bonus points, I'd recommend renting it out via a lease purchase to reduce the costs for maintenance and repairs. 

If they were installed after all these problems came up then the movement should be greatly reduced but if the house is bearing on expansive clay you could still have more settlement/shifting down the road.

Currently, my wife and I are working on reducing our credit debt before we venture into purchasing a property. 

You can always consider reducing your debt service side by A) putting more cash down on the purchase or B) getting an equity partner(s) and splitting the pie.I Have a mentor that liked to partner on investments. 

if another big tax reform actually did come out of Congress, there would be a push to simplify the code, eliminate deductions, and reduce rates similar to the 86 reform.  

The funny thing is, as the Fed has reduced their purchases, mortgage prices have actually gone up relative to other rate instruments.