90% of the time you are going to return the whole deposit plus interest if your state requires you to pay interest on it.Normal wear and tear typically can not cause you to with hold from the deposit.The only time you are likely going to be in a position to keep the entire deposit is if the unit is totally trashed, in which case that deposit wont hardly cover the repairs.Occasionally you might be witholding $50-$100 for some random minor repairs.

In this town I have come across landlords who take no security deposits and wonder why their places are filthy and getting destroyed by pets and people.

A VPN etc wont help when every guest has their own laptop/ phone.

dealing with investors you talking about investor sentiment and such.it really depends on what type of project your talking about.. if its just rental property that's pretty easy.but if your talking about development or flipping then you cant have blinders on  you do need to  try to anticipate market changes.. we have done that by limited debt so if we do have a change we ride it out no problembut to take on max debt in certain segments of real estate in certain markets you do need to be more than Hey my renters wont leave  LOL

However, be weary of areas that look good on paper, but will break the bank when the tenant destroys a years worth of cash flow.  

But ya live and learn so I wont be making that mistake again.

You wont find any high demand metro area with ratios that high.

@Tyler MullenI wont put any earnest money man.

I can't imagine spending months in angst worrying whether that will be the one that destroys my property or drives away guests it is only going to get worse and worse and worse.

Just pray that you wont get a tenant that decides to get an ESA......