At CA prices, that’s a hefty pill to swallow and limits my scale ability.

One that can sell the loans on the secondary market, hold the loans or also has the ability to work as  broker to find you other products.

It all depends on your goals, your resources, what market you’re in and your experience level and ability to pull it off.

Unless I'm mistaken (& please correct me if I am), removing the ability for a landlord to screen problem tenants would flood the market with problem tenants, thus increasing the eviction rate.

This will make a statement, and you can vet them simply by their ability to walk you through the process.

If you want the ability to return on a whim, I'd suggest doing month to month leases for all of your tenants. 

If we reduce leverage we may get lower cash returns however we do increase our ability to 'stay in the game' and not be forced sellers should rental rates decrease or vacancies rise.

(This I need to get a better understanding, if i) each unit has a separate water meter that the tenant is responsible for, ii) otherwise if there is a bill-back arrangement with the tenants. 

You're agent should be helping you understand that and hopefully you trust their ability and intention in that regard.   

You basically only need to know how to operate a mouse to play the game, because the first couple of hours don't require any ability to diagnose problems with the house.The most positive thing I can say about the game is that it's very drunk person friendly if you're like me and tend to prefer games with competition but don't want to derank if you've been drinking.