So my inspection report came back and it cited the same egress requirements.

In the case of a successful tort against you, you might regret commingling funds in a single bank account, but I can't see how keeping them consistently separated would ever burn you, even if it is a bit less convenient.  

For many owners, this is a win.Other owners may value the consistent monthly deposits rather than worrying about the usually seasonal STR incomes. 

For context, 4 adults and all our tech living here, we were running about $250/mo on average per month for electricity anyway... outside of summer a/c useage. so all in all, its saved me about $2k a year if i had to guesstimate for you (it stays hot here through October usually).i still owe about $23k on mine, have no intentions of selling the house. but if i decide to move out and rent the whole house out, our market would support higher rent in exchange for no electricity bill. i think you just need to decide what YOUR main benefit of having the panels are. for me it was for the house-hack, and consistent billing, despite the usage. if its strictly for property value increase, i'm not sure it would be worth it, pending your specific market. 

In order to negotiate the deal, I used the inspection report to help me get a better price.

Biggest thing IMO is getting close to the train station and have a high quality units that may not look attractive on paper the first few years but will have the ability to raise rents consistently long term. 

Hard work and consistent action pay off.

The other qualities of being successful is just consistency, do it daily.  **** is hard, but that's the reason not everyone is successful. 

While it doesn't meet the 1% rule it's in a stable, desirable area that'll perform more consistently for you over time so it's worth the tradeoff in my opinion.

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.