You could make it a laundry area and provide coin operated machines (more income).You might check into Owner Financing depending on how motivated they are and if there is a substantial existing mortgage. 

Definitely recommend getting some wallet cards made up -- these are smaller than business cards and can fit in wallet slots.

The units will each have a water heater, kitchen sink, 1 bathroom, and  washing machine. 

We are purchasing a multi with plenty of space to incorporate a coin op laundry machines.

However several of these near me have converted to credit card machines. 

No water, no ice machine, and a 3 year warranty!

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.