Monthly reporting (through an owner portal or statement) is usually sufficient — you shouldn’t need to chase updates if the system is working well.

If you are an accidental landlord anyways, you'll want to sell eventually, and you need to keep in mind the tax implications of selling, which are no taxes if it is within three years of moving.Finally, I will leave you with a piece of advice about making decisions. 

I am also an active investor (buy/hold outside CA - although I live in CA, w/property manager in place) while also investing passively in real estate for steady income (RE advisor handles all aspect of the asset and property management).I find that I navigate between all three categories.Which do you find most profitable  

The management company I've worked with for years merged with another which recently did roll out such a benefit package to my tenants with their lease renewals this year.I tried self-managing back in the beginning (years ago) and made plenty of beginner mistakes - a tenant who turned the spare bedroom into a weed-smoking group meditation room, a tenant who let the oil tank run dry three times (I've since switch all prop to gas), and even my first management company I found was skimming off the top. 

40 y/o, married with three kids, software developer by day. 

I don’t believe I can 1031 it, as I have never rented over the three years that I’ve owned it.

I keep track of one, three unit property on a program (free) called Manager. https://www.manager.io/    My wife keeps track of our other 5 properties on Quickbooks.

I used TurboTax, or something like it through three or four properties, then hired a CPA after that.

I have witnessed many funds that started on sound principles compromise those principles when they couldn’t generate sufficient deal flow to be able to invest the capital that suddenly came into their lap. 

I can remember when it took on average, 180 days to sell a house***************************************************https://www.dailymail.co.uk/real-estate/article-15086063/big...Housing markets across the US are showing signs of trouble as properties linger on the market in 44 out of 50 major US metros.The worst hit area is Miami, where houses are now sitting unsold for nearly three months — almost four weeks longer than a year ago.Across the country, the typical home spent 60 days on the market in August, seven days longer than a year ago and above pre-pandemic norms, according to a Realtor.com report.