I can assure you I would own and manage 100 units if risk mitigation wasn't a huge part of my strategy.

Let me jump in as well . . . our entire development team is working vigorously to mitigate these issues and the solutions we've got planned should take care of these issues.  

If the property manager is allowing a known carcinogen to enter the apartment, I can't imagine how they would not be obligated to mitigate.  

insurance can vary greatly depending on several factors, age of home, will it pass wind mitigation, is it in a flood zone, etc.Likewise the rent amount will vary.

Electric baseboard heat is cheapest to install, and since used less, the operating costs are mitigated. 

The bigger guys do some hedging and have arrangements with the gas suppliers that can mitigate some risk.

You screen, I screen, we all screen our markets, properties, tenants, and contractors for the characteristics that are likely to produce the outcomes that we desire while we also analyze, hedge, mitigate, and/or actively avoid the risks against outcomes that we don't want.

On the flipside, BRRR makes sense depending on what your goals are, which obviously can create lots of momentum for acquiring more properties at an accelerated rate, I mean who doesn't want to utilize economies of scale and have 20 properties within 5 years, you just have to be able to position yourself correctly to mitigate those risks, however, if you do what I do and grow slow you tend to feel safer in taking a more conservative position.

That's the kind of question they should have on the tip of their tongue unless there's some other mitigating factor.

It's a giant albatross that limits (affordable, especially) housing development.As a citizen, however, it's not so clear.In CA, we have a regulation called CEQA - it gets in the way of any development activity and basically says (my words): "If you're going to make the environment worse for anyone by building this, you better figure out how not to ... or pay to mitigate it some way."