It is essentially an advanced rents account. 

Arizona, where I live, has serious laws on pool safety, because we've had so many kids die in them.Here are our rules where children under 6 live or have access. 

I shared it was for safety and utilities reasons!

Not everything has to be fixed up front, unless safety and living standards is compromised. 

Most newer property, single house/plex/condo, are at about 0.5 ration, so essentially it is barely break even, or you may end up paying out of your pocket for $100 a month.

Some or most outlets are most likely not up to current safety standards, and could need replacing in order to prevent any liability if there is a resident injury or fire related to non-GFCI outlets.As far as the LLC goes in protecting you, at the end of the day it is not too hard to pierce the corporate veil if someone really wants to get aggressive with litigation so I would do it but not expect to be completely protected from any and all things that can go wrong.The laundry pitfall is a great opportunity to force appreciation by installing a laundry room down in that basement and increasing that NOI.

Much of this money is retirement money for the true private lenders, so rest assured they will be very very careful of who they lend their money too, and the safety of the deal for them....and it will have to pay them more than they could get with safer alternative investments.Maybe you can reduce some of those costs if your first duplex is paid off and you're willing to use that as collateral.Can you borrow today against the duplex?

Essentially, portfolio lenders are the folks to approach if you are looking to work around that seasoning period as they have leeway over what risk they are willing to stomach for the note rate.On the flip side, correspondent lenders play by a different set of rules.

There's essentially no negotiation with HUD properties -- just put in your offer and see what they say.

Also check to see if fees have been more or less regularly increased over the past 10 years, or if they have been essentially unchanged.