My first rental property..how to vet tenants, and what to require

[Ryan Davis]

I am about to close on my first property on October 30th!! (Thanks BP for the inspiration!) 

This is a duplex that I plan to house hack. I have to do some remodeling that will take about a month but I will be ready to rent out the other side by the end of November. I want to make sure I am going about this in the right direction, so here are a few of my questions; 

A) I plan to use BP's smartmove for screening and charging applicants the fee. So I think that part is pretty self guided. 

B) Do you require rental insurance? And if so, how do you make your tenants prove that they have and will maintain this throughout their lease? 

C) I think I read a forum on here a while back that said never let your tenant pay the water bill because if they don't pay, the city can file a lien on your property. Is this true? If so, how do you go about handling utilities? (The property is sub-metered off, so I was hoping to make my tenants pay all of their own utilities.)

D) How do you figure a proper amount to charge for a security deposit? What do you charge up front, first months rent AND security deposit? Am I missing something here? 

Final Question) I will go BP podcast style questioning here; if you had one piece of advice for someone like myself about to be a landlord, what would it be? 

Thanks for everyone's help in advance!