You have the same choice with your PM.With that said, I will routinely scale my leasing fees back for higher priced units.

The actual money may be maintained in the same reserves account, but, the way they are accounted for once spent are different.Maintenance and repairs are part of your ongoing operating expenses and are items that are relatively small in costs and routine repairs.

I have learned that a routine repair at a rental property can be thrown totally out of proportion by the tech, handyman, professional saying something that the tenants misconstrue  when fixing a problem  after a  tenant calls me with an issue.... 

If the current owner has awful tenants and a property in disarray, who knows if he has skimped on routine maintenance, leading to a lot of deferred maintenance (which you need to underwrite into your financial modeling).Keep this thread informed as to your progress!

Anyway security deposits are to repair damage caused by the tenant not to repair routine wear and tear items.  

Then it was sort of rinse and repeat.I did notice that was a popular starting point on a BP poll recently (renting out a place you already owned/lived in).It makes sense as you have the financing in place, the transaction complete, plus you have screened the area and the property, know all the maintenance and routines, etc.So your first home may be your first investment property, too, eventually. 

But I will say commercial due diligence follows much the same routine.

Thinking it was a routine eviction (we had probably done one every two years for the past decade) we went into court.

I now have to provide the routine documents (W-2s, pay stubs, tax returns ect...)

I gave my $300,000 move-in ready beautiful vacant home to this large well known local co in Oct 2016.( Ive owned and self-managed another very similar rental in the same subdivision-- since 1998--and it has never had one day of vacancy in 16 years-- rented at $1860.This professional pm co put all utilities in their name on my new property and turned the hot water heater ON and the Water ON ( even tho the main water cutoff valve is easily accessible in the coat closet beside the garage.They let the property sit VACANT OCT-NOVand on their "routine inspection on Dec 1, to make sure hobos had not moved in" they SAW the water heater in the garage was spewing (at full blast) A 20' stream/ fountain of HOT WATERand that the entire finished closed garage was covered COVERED !!