While you can save huge dollars by increasing the deductible just a single percent, the downside can lead to catastrophic cash shortfalls in the event of a loss. 

The fact that they split the rent up makes it much, much easier to raise rents on students versus non-students.4) CONSISTENCY OF THE TENANT BASEBarring a catastrophic occurrence, the University will be there for a long time.

Most of the time you'll be fine, but when something bad eventually happens (with enough exposure over time, you are virtually guaranteed to have something bad happen), the outcome is likely to be catastrophic. 

Having a rental property sit unsold for over six months is what I would call catastrophic, particularly if it's vacant!

The last Asheville catastrophic flooding was within 5 years of the last Tampa hurricane. 

I believe it tends to give me a slightly lower return, because the sponsor is going to be more careful, and if there is a severe downturn will prevent me from taking catastrophic losses.

This is an astute observation that distinguishes between "mom and pop" landlords and large operations I can see how economies of scale can help, for example if you have 100 units and two have economic vacancy, it's not the catastrophe of owning a 2 unit and one half goes economically vacant.Nonetheless, is there a reason that small scale operations can't buy at a deep discount while large operations can?

We bought cars for single moms, dug wells for orphanages, bought gifts for AIDS camps in Jamaica and in early 2008 we were both told to give it all for 6 months to a couple we had known for a long time who had suffered some catastrophic setbacks. 

I believe it tends to give me a slightly lower return, because the sponsor is going to be more careful, and if there is a severe downturn will prevent me from taking catastrophic losses.

Agent spam is not terrible outside of Columbus, but the general spam from lenders is CATASTROPHIC and I report all of it.Speaking of catastrophic lending, I was almost scammed by this guy, Justin Nguyen, who contacted me on BP.