The renovation costs may include a contingency reserve and renovation-related costs.Contingency Reserves:Contingency reserves 10 % required for any unforeseen cost overruns that may occur during construction.Unused contingency reserves that were financed into the loan will be applied to the principal balance of the loan.

We have an addendum that we serve if this occurs that essentially gives notice that the home has been abandoned, and if we don't hear back from the tenant in the prescribed period we will take the property back per state code.Check to see if Georgia has this same thing.Then update your leases to include this for future tenants.Or find a rental association that provides leases with these baked in.

Lots of friends (owning competing businesses) had to go through Bankruptcy recently due to the small market shift that occurred, just bought at the peak and were too hopeful in the market continuing upward.

If there are any anomalies that occur which require more expensive repairs then that ratio can and will be higher, especially in your first year or 2 of owning a property as you work to get things stabilized. 

This often occurs because the sponsor takes something like “40% of the profits over $XXX”.  

In this case, am I still able to count the inspection fee as a capital loss, even though this expense occurred before I rented out my first property?

Marie Johnson - please see this link where what you proposed in your post seemed to occur for somebody:http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/11/13/rolling-jubilee-proclaim-liberty-throughout-all-the-land/

While insurance might cover the reconstruction of your property, the community's recovery could take years or, in some cases, never occur.

In a perfect world an assignment (like @Chris Seveney suggested) would be recorded with each transfer of the note but in reality that does not occur.

Sometimes (rarely), people will accidentally get shot in the crossfire between gangs like a few days ago in Tulum but that type of incident occur pretty much everywhere but you just don't hear about it.