Online tenant portals allow tenants to pay rent (or any other charges) with an E-check (free) or credit/debit card ($27 fee - I believe). 

My working history during this time have been inconsistent and unstable, but my credit history is still pretty stable. 

For tax purposes, both investors would simply report 1/2 of all income and expenses on their respective Schedule E.

Before you've owned it long enough to appear on tax returns, an investor friendly lender will just do [ rent * 75% - PITI ].Once it appears on tax returns, if you need/want to exclude the one-time rehab expenses, put it on line 19 of schedule e with the comment "see statement X," and then statement X in extreme detail lists all the repair and rehab work you did, and furthermore you can provide me with every single receipt/invoice, exactly matching the line 19 number, exactly down to the penny (so, it's best just to make each invoice/receipt be a line-item on statement X... if Contractor John gives you 5 invoices throughout the project, show me 5 line-items).Only one-time repairs/rehab can be discounted from the mortgage DTI math.

The flip side of this is you just hold them in your LLC (w/o filing partnership return) and let them all flow down to your personal tax return (usually your schedule E).  

I mention this because if that $1,000 less is box E, F, and G stuff, that just means the other lender is quoting unrealistically low to 'earn' your business, and the Tax Man's going to come after you for the shortfall one way or another later on.

. - Very stable neighborhood for renters.She said she will list it for $350k.

If the juice isn't worth the squeeze do not squeeze.

You can always be building your contact database until you have your license in place and are stable to go out on your own!

E.