Personally, if I had sufficient reserves and there was enough cushion in the deal to allow for a rent drop, I'd feel comfortable using my home equity as a downpayment. 

I think that would be sufficient to include the well and septic into that 10%. 

My second spreadsheet is mostly pulled from census data/trulia/zillow (so I take the numbers with a grain of salt) but it lists on the X axis the zipcodes as well as the county as a whole.On the Y axis it lists: average listing price, median sale price (90 day period), median sale price versus last year, price per square foot, price per square foot versus last year, median rent per month, vacancy rate, annual property growth value, number of rentals on the market for that month, median rent versus last year, median rent divided by 1BD/2BD/3BD etc etc, median age, median household income, school districts, single residents, college educated percentage, percent home owners, population growth etc (there's more but I feel this is sufficient to get the point)3.)

I was thinking of whether to get an LLC or just obtain umbrella insurance and sufficient liability insurance.

Redding has much more reasonable rents, therefore; the allowance offered by insurance companies seem to be sufficient for the market, so far anyway. 

I have had Medicaid question the sale of a house retrospectively, questioning the sale price because we bought below FMV, however, a letter explaining the price based on the “as is” condition of the house and the expenses required for renovate to get the house to FMV was sufficient.

Commissioner , supra , neither the taxpayers themselves nor their agents had been sufficiently active with respect to the real property involved to be engaged in a trade or business.

I have sufficient funds for a 20% downpayment, but am debating if it might make sense to use an FHA loan only and put 3-10% down instead to keep some funds available for seeking out future deals.Loan would probably be in the $400k range, which means3.5% = $14,00010% (MIPS for 10 years) = $40,00020% (no PMI) = $80,000Of course I'd take the 0.88% PMI hit by going FHA which really annoys me given that interest rates are rising already. 

All of these folks have to interact in a timely fashion, and then the whole project has to not raise your PITI beyond the "self sufficiency" guidelines of the loan. 

Often an MLS or attorney-vetted brokerage form for Seller Occupancy after Closing may be sufficient, and your real estate agent should be able to help you fill in the blanks.