They are expensive.On the plus side, they have a huge marketing machine and I feel very comfortable that they will have enough potential renters looking at the property that it will be rented with little to no vacancy.

- apartments don't come with a washing machine 

Now the normalized rate is used for qualification purposes, so it's never done.In theory you might have someone at a 20% DTI who would prefer to be at a 15% DTI for that first couple years, but IRL people at 20% DTI are those very same people who can just do the math to realize that this heavily favors the bank, and such a person (who could qualify either way) would never do it.I certainly applaud that you're looking into wonky guideline provisions and how you might hack a glitch in the matrix, but this is the wrong glitch to be trying to hack, unless your time machine allows you to travel to 2005. :)The closest to this that now exists, for the cash heavy but income modest, is buying out the PMI upfront on a conventional mortgage, rather than ever making a monthly PMI payment.

Benefits of 1031 exchange are you avoid paying taxes and if your in real state for the long term might as well keep your money in real estate, I see real estate as being a money printing machine.

forced appreciation is an artificial increase in value realized when the property is sold; there are a number of things you can do to improve the property,  new appliances and services for tenants,  obtain an upgraded appraisal, increase rents, upgrade tenants, and coin service laundry machines. 

As far as the creative financing, I am taking about 6 months to a year to get educated on creative financing and figure how this RE machine works.

If upgrading showerheads, toilets, faucets, and/or washing machines would cost you $1000, but save you $15/month over the next 20 years, I'd say it's worth it

I was going to be the vending machine king, apartment complex baron, t-shirt vendor...

I stayed at a competitor's unit where they asked me to put sheets in the washing machine, start the cycle and do a bunch of other pre-check out clean up.

One of the recent 'touches' we are going to add since we have the equipment at our 'day job' is to laminate the front and back covers and use a binding machine (total cost about $150 for them) instead of just stapling things.