For the next billing cycle they increased my charges by $500 and did not notify me of the upcoming charge.

And during inflationary times rental rates increase.

While borrowing for a down payment is risky, increasing your savings will lower your interest rate.

I'll focus on maintaining the property and optimizing rent increases to ensure consistent returns over the years.

However, if you're a W2 high income earner or business owner, I can't imagine it makes any sense to flip houses, mail mass post cards, wholesale, or build lead gen websites with the value of your time being better spent other places (such as learning about real estate and increasing your income through proven means), such as at your 9-5pm or growing your business, and your real estate is a long term process and you don't need "home run" deals to qualify or make it work.

I recognize this is not the sole source of return, but the other sources have their return increase with smaller equity position. 

- The increasing cost of damage repair and potential mold growth

Your returns could be increased if you are willing to rent it by the room to individual students. 

They usually have a step down on that penalty like 3% year one, 2% year two, 1% year three and so on and so forth.So if you are buying a deal with the intention of rapidly increasing it's value in less than 24 months in order to refinance it and pull your cash out, you might want to go with a credit union for the acquisition financing because FCUs are barred from charging pre payment penalties.I could talk about this for hours about all the nuances but my fingers don't type that fast lol

People have failed twice now with the housing bubble and the recent meteoric increase in rates because they were gambling with the rates to save a percentage point.