Quite frankly, unless your friend ENJOYS sleepless nights, constant stress and worry, unexpected and excessive expenses I would stay CLEAR of real property.

Paying the tenant out for the total lease amount I agree is excessive and unrealistic.

I think you're overthinking this. 25 extra dollars a month to use a washer/dryer seems excessive to me. 

Although I don't think I would personally sign that, ....30 days seems excessive, never heard of such a thing in my area.

- Up-front cost difference- Energy (heating) costs- Comfort- Resale value impact- Anything else that's relevantWhen I say crawl space, I mean a non-ventilated, moisture-protected (vapor barrier, waterproof spray, and sand/gravel), heated space, NOT the dirt-covered, ventilated space of old.Thanks!

Sometimes the field bed will fail due to excessively saturated soil or crushed lines or various other reasons.

s more  There's so much hype and "excessive exuberance" in REI, I fear a great many can't connect the dots that so frequently lead to "unintended consequences". 

You can take your excess capital and invest it passively in real estate or in other asset classes and not loose all the benefits of leverage in your real estate portfolio.There are ways to invest in real estate where you can mitigate risk, reduce volatility, carry leverage, get leveraged tax benefits, get some leveraged appreciation benefits, have cash flow, force appreciation, have high IRRs and control your financial future without sacrificing some of these benefits for the others.  

But that is just me.In any event 550K sounds excessive.

There should never be an excess of 300K of unused funds on a 500k deal.