On two occasions are tenants had newborn or young children so we purchased a kids book about our town, ABC's of Bloomington.

I primarily invest in first liens and on occasion see second liens floating around but not as many as I saw 5+ years ago

If I'm not mistaken there are no rules about making low offers, and whatever fiduciary duties you may should be limited to those occasions when you intend to offer Brokerage Services.

I can't tell you the number of times I had written estimates and everything was agreed on, then once we got into the project the contractor came back (on multiple occasions) to request change orders for things that would never have been known without opening up walls, ripping up flooring etc. 

I used to AirBnB my condo on occasion when I would go out of town, and was impressed with the rents I was able to command (especially in the summertime, which is gangbusters).Oceanside is in the county of San Diego, but it’s outside the *city* of San Diego so it is fortunately not subject to the previously mentioned regulation as I understand it.

Fast forward a couple months and she's lost her ever loving mind trying to get me to sign the house back to her, even trying to break in on more than one occasion. 

I've had a couple go longer over the years and had a window unit for those occasions.

In either occasion, it's vital that you have an excellent working relationship with whichever contractor that you hire and you, in general, let them do their job and trust that they have your best interests in mind.

It took me about a year to learn this, but its only on RARE occasion now that I get into long term contracts with service providers anymore.

I remember on one occasion I had negotiated a lease with an option to purchase with a seller and had viewed the property.