From what I've experienced and what my mentors have advised me of is that if there is no skin in the game, there is nothing to lose and you don't want to be in business with someone who has nothing to lose.

That's the great thing about real estate, there's a million ways to skin the cat.Regardless you can put in those terms in all of these scenarios if you are writing the contract.  

. $500 for only 2.5x rent and $1k for an eviction)You may still screen out a lot of folks this way, but the folks you keep will have more skin in the game.

Not only does coming up with the money for a security deposit show some level of responsibility, it also gives the tenant some skin in the game.

The only challenge is that we don't have any 'skin in the game' when it comes to REI.

I have found, I made the best decisions when I has skin in the game.

Obviously someone has skin in the game, but to say that those strategies are "junk" to sling books is just not accurate. 

You also need to ask yourself the following questions:  Do you have money to invest ("skin in the game")?

Even though we have some funds available to invest (skin in the game so to speak) we are looking at about $30k in closing costs which is like another deal all together.What creative ways have you all found to cover closing costs?

They want the "skin in the game".Another note, the numbers you used in your scenario are almost the exact same numbers for the past purchase + rehab I did.