Also may want to leave a bit more of a buffer for both the initial repairs and the on going maintenance.  

Initially I put a lot of sweat equity.

Basically, the developers and initial investors make money early on in these deals.

From my initial research, it looks like today's rate for new decks is $35/sqft, which puts a deck replacement on this property between $9k-$12k.

Working with them for the conventional mortgages initially gave us a foot in the door to get larger sums of money with the last 9 houses. 

What a great summary of your initial due diligence. 

Just ensure they initial by each point when you go over the lease with them might do the trick.  

Hey All, I have a scenario that I wanted to get advice on since there seems to be some ambiguity based on my initial conversations with lenders. 

Our goal is to place great tenants, we don’t get paid on vacant units ;) We guarantee placement for the initial lease term or we place the next tenant no cost.

My initial thoughts are to use the $30k to knock down the debt to $10k as the much higher interest I pay on the debt means I’m losing money each month, and start again saving from scratch.