Not sure the conversion rate, but if you already have new appliances, there is no reason you need to spend $5000 to give the kitchen and bath an attractive facelift.

I still was paid my regular freelance rate.

Many successful real estate agents know how to properly showcase a house to make it more marketable and develop creative MLS listings to attract the right buyers.9.

I thoroughly cover this topic in the first link and the 2nd link is an article which contains updated stats:http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/2140...http://www.zillow.com/research/landlord-profit-735...To expand upon these posts, here are the historical annual appreciation numbers for SF, which I believe are undeniable:5 Years - 8%/Yr.10 Years - 0%/Yr.20 Years - 5.8%/Yr.30 Years - 5.6%/Yr.I view long term buy and hold investing as a 15+ year time horizon and SF has returned extremely attractive gains over those periods.

Have more liquid that will be more attractive to any lender, conventional or HM.

In the second scenario, I am worried about the kinds of reckless tenants a college town attracts, and it would mean a longer commute to work for me. 

IMO, you are looking for easy and inexpensive deterrents that make the neighbor's house more attractive to crooks.

Just kind of cold now.Seeing as this is basically like a brand new high end home (might be a bit much for the area, but we did all the work ourselves and since we are gonna live here for at least a year or two, wanted it to look nice for us, and to attract a good quality tenant).

I do see that you are in San Diego and the price points there are less attractive than other markets, but you just have to decide to balance the ability to learn by doing self management for some time, or learn as much as you can about off-site management before taking the plunge into another market.  

Get over that, or you'll be taken advantage of all the time in this business.I'd keep the deposit, without question.I'm not sure on the grade of property you're dealing with here, or the tenants that you attract.