But Fido remains at the house in perpetuity. 2) Allow pets and get a $350 pet fee.I've tried not allowing pets with college kids and it's basically impossible. 98 out of 100 students at UofSC seem to have a black lab puppy named Winston.

Talk to her case worker and explain that she needs to have any remaining items moved out within 48 hours or they will be considered abandoned.  

The idea is to remain cash neutral until we retire in about 20 years.

I'm wondering if that's a basic red flag or if property managers prefer to remain in the city.

When the purchase price is above $500,000, the minimum down payment is 5% for the first $500,000 and 10% for the remaining portion.You could qualify for a mortgage by having a co-signor, perhaps a parent.

Find a good tenant, begin collecting rental income, and remain actively involved in your rental property business.  

I suppose option 1 could have an early payoff penalty equal to the remaining interest due.

My current banker is telling me that this would need to be a comercial loan and has to remain an ARM.

If you aim for 5 million, and at the end of year 4 you are only at 1 million, don't change your strategy and pursue ever increasingly risky bets in the hopes to somehow come up with the remaining 4 million. 

If you do some research on the last 5 recessions you will find that only the most recent one has seen a loss of housing values, while the ones before housing values remained stable or gained a few points.