Little to no maintenance or pesky phone calls from the tenants because they treat the house as if they owned it.

I can see how that wouldn't work since similar strategies of "highest and best" scenarios puts off many of the clients i represent and can see how treating a cash buyer as a number would yield similar results.

For me anyone with a fico below 560 is probably a life long deadbeat, and anyone with no credit file, probably is also a dead beat, but they could have no credit for many reasons other than their lack of credit worthiness, so I assign 25 gamble points to the no credit renter and treat them as equivalent to a 585 fico.

According to my tax attorney, I don't need to issue them because I'm treating my rentals as a "passive activity and not a business".

If the rental is treated as a separate property from the primary residence, would the tax treatment be different than previously described?

I inquire on their availability, reliability, references and I let them know I want to be treated fairly and that the work will be assigned on Friday.

Otherwise there will be no seasoning and when you go to get a loan the lender will treat it as a purchase, not a refi. 

People will treat you exactly as you allow them to.

Two of the safe harbors that can help you deduct improvements are below:1) 2500 de minimis safe harbor.the safe harbor applies to amounts paid during the tax year to acquire or produce what the regs call a “unit of property” (UOP), you must meet these requirements: (1)you need to have written accounting procedures treating as an expense for non-tax purposes amounts paid for property costing less than a specified dollar amount (which will be 2500 for you), or with an economic useful life of 12 months or less;.(2) the taxpayer treats the amount paid for the property as an expense on its books and records in accordance with its accounting procedures. ( do this on your bookkeeping software or whatever you utilize)(3) the amount paid for the UOP doesn't exceed $2,500. as substantiated by the invoiceNote: The cost for the Unit of Property includes l additional costs (for example, delivery fees, installation services, or similar costs) if these additional costs are included on the same invoice with the property.2) Small taxpayer safe harbor: To be eligible for the safe harbor, the total amount of improvements for the property for the tax year may not exceed the lesser of $10,000 or2% of the property's unadjusted basis.If the total amount paid exceeds the safe harbor threshold, the safe harbor does not apply to any amounts spent during the tax year.

@Ben Payano Have you treated posting in various Facebook groups?