And I love residual income even more.

At move-in I use a two column inspection report (move-in & move-out) and note the conditions at move-in.Tenant and LL sign and date.Come move-out, drag out the inspection report and walk/inspect with the tenant, again both sign & date.Get the new address to mail the "deposit refund" (don't even have check book with you).Here in Calif, we must respond on or before 21 days after move-out with an itemized repair list and the residual deposit being refunded.

If you've experienced no costs, the guy left willingly and left the unit in good shape(no residual odor, etc), I don't see any reason to penalize him financially.If the guy takes you to small claims for the deposit, how are you going to prove that he was indeed doing this in the unit?

Max dti for automated approval through GUS is 47% housing ratio and a 57% back end ratio (and this is pretty much everyone, lenders don't manually underwrite unless there is an automated approval issue) - even then 31% and 43% are just placeholders, HUD allows 37% and 47% by meeting residual income requirements and no further compensating factors on R/E loans, and you can exceed 37% and 47% (most lenders will cap back end at 50%, but you can go to 57%) with strong compensating factors, such as assets.  

DTI and residual income, one of those two, is always the primary limiting factor for VA deals.

I'm interested in rental property and building residual income.

Cash out refi or HELOC.Rent the place out to bring in a little residual income.

Buy at a discount, rehab the house, rent it out for a monthly residual income and refinance it so you can pull your money back out to do another one?

You also only get one payday and that is when you flip the property, so there is no residual income.

With that being said, I also have goals to own multiple units in the future to create residual income.