However, we have a higher end market so it always struck me as strange that we'd only provide such a small amount since it doesn't cost that much more to provide more.

It's calculated as the ratio of your total loan amount (loan amount for purchase + loan amount for your rehab) to your total costs (purchase price + rehab budget). 95% is a good target.Avoid application and other upfront/junk fees. 

@Veronica Mitchell - A little bit of an open-ended question since Chicago is just so massive and has a ridiculous amount of mult-family properties. 

Or said differently purchase twice the amount of houses I have been buying. 

This means that if you pay off the loan too early, then you'll pay a 1-5% fee off the loan amount. paying off the loan early means you either refinance or you sell the property, both would trigger a prepayment penalty to the lender. that being said, you can choose your prepay options, 5yr usually giving you a better interest rate by like a 0.25%, 3yr being most common and standard, and a 0,1,2 yr where you can buy down the prepay to be less years. meaning you pay 1% upfront of the loan amount to get a 1yr prepayment penalty so you're free to sell the property or refi after 1yr. 

My opinion is to invest in the S&P unless you are willing to spend a substantial amount of time learning the space.  

We have tiered returns based on investment amount and time in the deal.

If you have a significant amount of passive income (from passive investments maybe from K-1s or other rental properties), then you could use the apartment rental loss to offset that passive income only.

For example, you could allow them to handle repairs below a certain amount without needing your approval, while requiring your input for anything above that.

Relatively small amounts of interest income ($1600+ per year) is the highest taxed form of income I have found if you have kids at home.After earning a few grand in interest, It takes away my child tax credits and gives me an effective tax rate of 70%.