I understand the ease of control using your own SDIRA LLC in performing payments for maintenance, etc. without the added overhead of the custodian, but I am now unsure how I should use it. 

That's easy and gives you way less stress. 

What accounting software have you used in the past and what size portfolio are you playing with? 

Short & sweet: Under contract on new 33 unit building.Currently my portfolio is all smaller buildings (2-4 unit properties).Today I use Apartments.com for rent collection, google voice for tenant comms (&email), and stessa for book keeping.This would be fine I am sure to onboard the extra units but at this point hoping to possibly switch to one platform to handle it all?

So, much more efficient to direct inquiries to your website and use software to schedule showings.

If you turn that property into a rental you should be able to do a 3-5% down owner occupant to get into another.

@David Fisher, The book "Paper Profits" by Josh Andrews is well written and easy to digest.

Guessing you bought it off the MLS 5 years ago - when it was EASY to find deals.Deals are much harder to find now, so you'll have to put in more effort!!!

I was going to use the income as my pension plan, but as I do more research, I was wondering what others do. 

Are you referring to actual IRL staging furniture, or virtual staging?