You can househack with FHA or conventional financing - FHA will require 3.5% down and conventional requires 5% down.

If not, I would still recommend going ahead with a professional cleaning company that has experience with mold remediation (make sure they send before and after pictures as well), if you really wanted you could give a small credit to the tenant to make them happy as well but 100% not required. 

While this may exempt it from being classified as a rental activity, active participation remains a requirement, necessitating compliance with three tests: spending 500 hours on the property, dedicating at least 100 hours (and more than any other participant), and performing all the necessary work needed.Additionally, long-term viability and consideration of depreciation recapture are important concerns.

I've also had one potential tenant tell me that "an income requirement of 3x the monthly rent basically disqualifies single-income families".

Required agency agreements will be the new norm going forward, not what caused the lawsuits.

You will be required to submit plans and use a Philadelphia-licensed contractor.

This deduction can offset the income generated by the property, potentially reducing it to a tax-neutral position.For those with full-time jobs, the challenge lies in the IRS designation of "real estate professional," which has specific hour requirements that must be met to take full advantage of these deductions against ordinary income.

HELOCS do exist for rental properties but you are usually capped at 65-70ltv and these will most likely require a full underwrite that takes into consideration taxes, income, dti and all the normal quasi-associated red tape.

While this may exempt it from being classified as a rental activity, active participation remains a requirement, necessitating compliance with three tests: spending 500 hours on the property, dedicating at least 100 hours (and more than any other participant), and performing all the necessary work needed.Additionally, long-term viability and consideration of depreciation recapture are important concerns.

The only possible workaround is likely super low LTV (like sub 50) or if its a purchase and basically zero things that would be required to not do SRO if they chose to do a vanilla LTR