@Aaron McCurdy Hey, pay off your mortgage if you want, it's no skin off my back :-)  My point is that you'd want that deduction precisely because you're not "most people".  

The first thing I would do in your shoes is call the PM company and get somebody to explain to you how they justify $200 to replace an air filter.I've never seen anything this egregious, but this is precisely why I do not use a PM company.  

I live in Ventura County, and our area echos yours precisely.

Russ Casper @ Precision Flooring

Be diligent, be precise, and work as quickly as your time allows.

We have used Chicago Title and we also like Greater Illinois Title (had a horrible experience with Precision Title and do NOT recommend them).

I will update this with info as it comes available for more precise answers.

You won't have a tripod, off camera flash, or post processing.DSLR will offer more flexibility, and precision, but quality will be hardly noticeable especially as screen size decreases (cell phones/laptops).

Agents all the time say, "I don't know, you'd have to look into that yourself", precisely so they are not on the hook.  

Each property has a class code, or more precisely a subcode, corresponding to a property in the Schedule E.I use the "class" and "subclass" function where "class" is for "state" and subclass is for property.