Hi @Alex Pham we use BBH Insurance Agent for our landlord insurance and have used for standard home insurance in the past.

I would also make sure that if you've checked one applicant's social media, you apply the same standard for all others as well.

Instead of taking the depreciation over the standard number of years, you send in an army of qualified professionals and they go and look at each part of the building and make a guess at how many years each component has.

Most listing agreements are boiler-plate docs based on standardized state contracts, and there may not be much that the real estate agent has the authority to negotiate (many of the requirements will be dictated by their brokerage). 

If the property cash flows once you have it up to standard, hold it and move forward from there.

We are building to HUD standards now so we do not have any issues with design review when we engage.  

.- Garage/Backyard: Yard is standard Chicago size with above ground pool that takes up most space (girlfriend wants to keep, I want to get rid of haha).

Always do a background/credit check, call their last two landlords, collect a security deposit, have a formal lease, call their employer to verify income and to get an idea of how they perform at work and be extremely clear in your standards.

From experience, I can tell you that we work with hundreds of property managers and landlords that either exclusively manage storage units or manage storage units alongside other standard residential housing.

Can’t apply same standards in every market.