In short, I wouldn't be doing this without him.However, your comment did register with me as I should have researched more about what is industry standard before getting started.

Chicago is not on our list of markets that meet those standards. 

@Jeff Daring in the standard contracts we use, specific lender is stated in the contract, so a denial from that lender would likely be all you need to exit with your deposit back unless you did something to sabotage the loan.

My advice is if you chose to increase,  explain to the tenants it's because of increased taxes/insurance/improvements, and make it standard-- if it's always at lease renewal, they'll expect it and there won't be any agitation.  

The early days padsplits operations process tried to run uusing hotel tenancy laws, that has fallen by the wayside due to magistrate court/fitting into a standard eviction process via magistrate court. 

However one thing that would make trouble for me was that I had some pretty high standards I was keeping the tenants to in an effort to clean the buildings.

This is payment processing and banking industry standard that we must follow.

Draft Standard Operating Procedures to advise on decisions concerning investments in addition to actions.

i was planning on rolling over a 401k from a previous employer to them while still fully employed with my employer where I have an active 401k plan. what they are suggesting is that they can help set me up as an affiliate (with a landing page online) which I can then share with people i know. i guess that will be the "active work" that will qualify as self-employment. it may work, but that will incur $3k one time account setup fee plus $399 yearly fees. are these fees over industry standards for QRPSs/solo-401ks?

Yes, they are recourse loans, so when borrowing within an LLC, you would sign on as a recourse guarantor, which is standard across the DSCR industry.