Hitting a "cash ceiling" is a common occurrence for property investors looking to scale and there are a few different ways to power through it.  

Now I’m curious though, is running credit and background on all partners, even if they aren’t bringing money to the deal a common practice with HMLs?

Better management and site layout, moving a few tenants around and creating more efficient common areas to increase the rentable square footage.

Hi Anthony, I thought the same thing when i was reading about this program and contacted CMHC who sent me different information so I think this is an error on their website. 

For utilities, I was hoping tenants can pay their own utilities but feel free let me know if that is not at all common in Chicago (will add water to my calculations). 

While it may be conservative, having a big cushion of available capital has allowed me to get through many sticky situations that were not foreseen going in (main stack and sewer lines being the most common). 

We need to take general liability insurance and E&O (Errors & omissions).

Her real estate agent tried to explain it away, saying it's human error and those things happen.  

For me, the most common thing I've seen has been loan officers who are unwilling to admit they have no idea what they're doing when it comes to VA loans.

They are very common, and mandated by lenders most commonly, in commercial leases.