This is unchartered territory for us--we are fortunate to have had only responsible and trustworthy agents in our past. 

Thank you all for your insightful responses; I hope you all had a great holiday!

Some people were told to lie by more than 2x the actual income, even though the person didn't have a job and massive student loan debt.3) I looked into the proprietary network that has 29k members; it was quite odd how 99% of all message posts received 0 responses.

Hey Drew, this home won't rent for $3,165 per month as stated in a previous response. 

Other Suggestions: Are there alternative strategies I haven’t thought of that would allow us to move legally and responsibly under the current circumstances?

What I have learned is the usefulness of the lead-generating sites is very market-specific.If I were to estimate, in the last two years, my lease-ups came from Craigslist (20%), Apts.com (20%), Zillow (30%) and FB (30%).Most of the responses from my ads come from Zillow (40%) and FB (50%), but most of those leads are woefully unqualified (especially FB). 

@Michael Smythe thanks for the response.

A credit card , you are only responsible for the first $50 . 

As long as the custodian company is responsive I wouldn't worry too much.Do your due diligence and make sure the custodian company is legitimate.

Therefore, it is common for LL to be responsible for heat and water, which can get very pricy in cold months, but the cost to change out boiler is nearly impossible to justify.