With the whole rent-control thing: I wonder if Newsom sold his fancy home in Northern CA would he charge as much as the market would bear, or would he give a substantial break to the next buyer?

LOL) that week just flew by, too busy trying to buy gifts for this Christmas party at my friends house, and too many last min change of plans...

If the seller cannot or will not do this then I would be asking the seller for some compensation to break the deal.

If the carpet is newer and the ozone machine doesn't 'solve' the 'problem', I'd tell them once again to break the lease. 

I might consider doing a cool blue for bathrooms to break things up a tad, pretty sure I would not go near a salmon color though!

Make concrete plans on how to achieve those goals breaking them down into as many steps as necessary.

If you are living in the house (typically the only way you can buy with less than 20% down), I wouldn't expect to break even while living there. 

But not for the appraiser. if it saves you the next 2 turn overs you already break even and you probably get get a little higher rent.

A couple things you have to consider with rental arbitrage is that anything that breaks in the house is an emergency for you, but not your landlord.

Typical deal I see will probably need 30-40% down to break even or cash flow.