Me and my partner a beginning this journey which we know will have some pots holes to cross.

It makes tons of since and pulling out the cash does give me more reserves and keeps me off the bench in terms of finding more properties immediately once I get to VA.

Hard to be sure based solely on pictures but those gouges look pretty superficial..... if the floor is level and even between joints etc, at best I would fill those "pot holes" with some wood putty or other filler and call it a day.

In that kind of model, losing 2-5% of income because of non-payers means everyone else in the system (all the ratepayers, tax payers, etc) must suffer because there's no magic pot of money to suck it up for these people.

If he’s on the fence about partnering you could even sweeten the pot by offering to split a share of the post-refi rents with him, basically a royalty.

The house is a 3 bed 1 bath tri-level just under 1,200 sqft with an over sized garage (2 cars wide with an extra 15 ft at the back for bench and tools.

Smoking - absolutely not, and I specify *everything* in my lease - no cigs, cigars, pot, vaping, e-cigs, etc.

(We're trying not to touch that pot for cushion for the unexpected). 

Bandit Signs, Billboards, Bus Benches, Youtube video ads with some dude singing "we buy houses" with his banjo.

Try to get them to see it from your side; you are a reasonable person and would like people to have the quiet enjoyment of their home and thus have tried hard to avoid having many restrictive "house rules", but your intention in renting to them was for them to use this single family residence in a typical way.An imperfect analogy:When Hertz or Avis rents you a car, sure you have "use of it for X days" - but they are not expecting you to enter a race with it at Watkins Glen, or use it to transport 150 bags of potting soil, stacked into every space in the trunk, back seat, passenger's seat, and roof.