My average tenant span is about 4-10 years, but that is because 2 years makes them grow roots. 

If hair starts to suffocate the filter your gonna shorten the life span of the furnace.

Houston's appeal spans long-distance and local investors, with approximately 25-35% of my clients falling into the former category.

that's a good question I have never listened to one or anyone's pod casts as I cant keep my attention span on anything real estate for more than about 10 minutes especially the u tube folks just rehashing old niches like they are new found strategies..

While I'm having a professional site plan done, but, having a custom house plan by an architect tends to be extremely expensive and "overkill" for my purposes (in my opinion), especially since as a GC I'm able to do optimizations to the plans myself.High quality plans in my mind are plans that are aesthetically pleasing and are (as designed) up to code (meaning, they don't specify floor joist spans that are too long, etc.).

It’s a small town but there are newer homes around this area and the SFH span from 150-250k give or take.

This will help you to avoid nasty surprises in the future.You will be able to come up with your own range for the total cost of repairs as well, spanning from work that is absolutely necessary to additional work you’d like to complete to raise the value of the home.

These properties are located in other states in smaller towns and span multiple legal entities and bank accounts. 

There is no avoiding that structural items have a life span. 

i think having 'discovery calls' with multiple brokers/lenders is always a good idea. see what loan products they can offer you, what their rates are like (but note that many tell you one thing & ultimately have to close you at another), and most importantly make sure you have a good gut feeling about them. make sure they're responsive and want to educate you & don't try to win your business by sh*tting on other lenders. it weirds me out that the person you talked to had said what they said. to my knowledge, rate shopping & getting your credit pulled for it multiple x in one 30-day span is just fine. all those hard inquiries fall off anyway. it's worth it to get a great loan product and a great rate. and they're wrong - not all lenders have the same products to offer!