@Nathan LaughlinSimple....Trial & ERROR.I own a business where people in the construction trade often frequent, however turns out most of them don't hold the best credibilty.

Other platforms that do the same are include RentRedi, Stessa, Avail, Innago, Apartments.com (formerly Cozy), and TenantCloud.If you want to go a more traditional sense and work with a more mature platform that doesn't bill your tenants you might look into Rentec Direct, Buildium, Appfolio, Propertyware, or Rent Manager.The best way for you to figure out which is going to work best for you is to explore their free trial (if offered).

You can of course use this property as a trial period.

This will give you a chance to learn the right way by watching at an arm's length how seasoned professionals do it, rather than through trial-and-error where you're stressed and anxious all of the time over knowing that you don't know what you don't know and never being quite sure what to do about it.I would recommend checking out the video library on Advanta IRA's website.  

The monthly variation in ACTUAL cash flow is part of the risk that allows us to demand a proportionally higher return from our investment than say a physical bond with a defined coupon rate.  

I think there's of course many variations of the same answer here and mine is probably no different!

Or was it a trial and error? 

The truth is, you could read 100 books and still not know enough because certain things need to be learned through trial-and-error.

My second tenant left after a brief while, and it took a few months of trial & error to get the now 2 vacant units occupied.

Think about it,you can only manage so many doors,the clients that have 10 and up units get special treatment,if your just starting out will be tough.Good PMs out there but you will have to go through trial and error.