Quote from @Brenden Evans: A large percentage of investors (maybe the majority) never really learn to manage their properties well.

What percentages do you value your expertise (finding the deals and managing the property) at? 

For a fix-and-flip scenario your max loan amount would be based off your experience and can go as high as a % or purchase although it is more common to get 90% as the loan size is typically restricted by the percentage of the ARV for that program.

Even then the rent only goes up a certain percentage of the renovation costs.

Better return vs risk. compared to the larger more expensive property.What would be a more accurate percentage of rent that you would allocate for maintenance and capex now that you see more realistic numbers from  your properties?

As you can see CA isn't outstripping the rest of the country as a percentage, it just feels that way in absolute terms because a 300% increase is a lot more when your starting point is $800K vs $200K.

But yes, if you prepay the loan in full within the pre pay penalty period, you would pay a penalty to the originating lender as a percentage of the original loan balance.

I believe the bank will calculate the LTV either as a percentage of the purchase price or a percentage of the appraised value, whichever is lower, is that correct?

They then issued a special assessment where each owner got charged a percentage of the total bill that included the expensive sewer line replacement, but our portion was less than we would have paid to fix our own unit, so we were fine with that.

Even better, use an equity participation note where you charge for example 5% interest plus a percentage of the profits.