You'd be surprised at what you might get - especially now with rents being down and some of these long term owners having grabbed a ton of equity over the last 10 years or so.   

And while I've only been investing out there for the last couple of years, I have yet to hear of a story where people were killed because they got caught in a cabin that went up in smoke. 

Quote from @Miguel Del Mazo: It basically says that if the electric bill is twice what the same month's bill from last year was, the overage will be charged as a fine.That's a good barometer actually.

I have flipped about 8 homes, we had a plumbing issue on the last home that finally got resolved....but could have turned south if it was not.

This was last month.

The other one has probably only been connected 3-4 months of the last 2 years.

My house was the last street built from previous construction.   

This period typically lasts for the first 20 days the property is listed (30 days in certain states).

For example, I often see Buyers purchase property thinking there is a $1,000 deposit but then the tenant claims it was $2,000 because they paid the last month's rent.

The loans were varied and some were able to close sooner than others and they wanted to close before the others but we held out because we needed to close all of them at the same time to avoid any last minute standoffs or complications.