School district is obviously a huge differentiator in price and if you aren’t an amateur cartographer you will have a hard time navigating the city/town/village boundaries which can have minimal relation to the postal mailing city which has minimal relation to the school district. 

It depends on the goal and personal preference.If it's a house to live in and want to pay down debt as soon as possible, then 15 year makes sense.If it's an investment property and goal is to minimize ALL expenses as much as possible to get the best cash flow (just like running a business), then 30 year would be best.

Whether that matters to you or not is another issue.An S Corp is designed to minimize SE taxes based on "reasonable compensation", which will vary for each and every taxpayer. 

And for context, I'm in Virginia.I ended up just going without a lease, which probably isn't a good idea in theory - but the guy has been a close friend since grade school so I figured minimal risk.People kept telling me to find a lodger agreement, but I couldn't find a good template.

I did a few thousand of them for my clients. end of the day though its a max leverage minimal return game.. which if your up for that that's fine.. just make sure you have adequate reserves..

Finally, the investment cost for me on this deal is negligible, so the risk is minimal.

You can remotely manage with minimal time and your phone.

Find a great deal with minimal to no rehab needed and see how it goes. 

I don't know anything about the income tax regime in Canada, but in the US (I'm also far from a tax expert in the US), if you finance 70-80% of a purchase price, there is generally very minimal if any income tax, after operating expenses, interest expense, and depreciation.For example, if you buy a property for $1m with $250k down and earn a 10% CoC return, your income, before depreciation and taxes is only $25k.

That helps minimize the risk of losing a property should things not go as planned (although things always go as planned, right?