You could put a line in your lease about “the landlord understands the inconvenience of broken appliances and will attempt to repair them as quickly as is reasonably.”

This is important as you understand where you want to be.

It was free the first year (or not free since their poor service and my lack of understanding cost me my tenants), but I refuse to pay for them again. 

From what I understand, equity on a property is the amount of money a property is worth minus the amount of money owed on the mortgage on the property.At least one article has said that the principal remaining on the mortgage is the only component of the mortgage that is accounted for when determining the amount of money owed on the property’s mortgage when calculating the equity one has on a property.I am not sold on just factoring a mortgage’s principal into the amount owed on a mortgage because if interest is also owed on the mortgage for the property, the interest should be accounted for in determining the amount of money owed on a mortgage, correct?

Whether it's financing, finding the right property, understanding the market, overthinking the process, or something else, I am interested to hear your experiences and challenges.

I agree with Konstantin.I am not sure about CA laws (they are not very favorable to landlords from what I understand). 

I read about it but do not fully understand it yet.

Assuming I am understanding you plan.

We don’t fully understand why it hasn't dropped more."

We received the payout in about 30 days and were able to rehab the unit and get it rented again promptly.From my understanding of the situation, if the tenant did not have the renter's policy in place, our own landlord policy would most likely have covered it, but they could also have pursued the tenant to collect those damages.