Luckily, they have a great inspection with no findings.Though not optimal, I decided not to pursue my $50 late fee and the whole issue with my renters breaking the lease by using their deposit as the last month's rent.I'm curious if you all know of a more functional approach to this whole last month's rent and  deposit thing. 

Hi Dale Radcliff , sounds like you’re heading in the right direction on BP and you’ve also been able to realize and accept your current position, as not optimal.

Thinking about it is so far outside of most of our circles of competency, that at best, its a time suck, at worst, it leads to sub optimal decision making and capital loss.  

I have been considering building a team in different markets to optimize my ROI thinking it may be slightly easier to locate a motivated seller that are not asking for retail.

Using half a duplex as a vacation home is not profit optimizing, is not tax-efficient, and gives you less flexibility for your vacation plans.

Would you only raise rents to market if the tenant is less than sub-optimal and take the initial hit in hopes of a better tenant in the future?

Never had any success, I suppose I wasn't clear enough in my pitch, and failed to optimally outline the potential in the investor. 

I have my own SEO tool and as soon as I made my website with investor carrot, it was already optimized for the top keywords for motivated sellers or motivated buyers.

I prefer to outsource as much as possible so that I can focus on operations and optimize our return-on-investment. 

It seems like you know that over optimism is a risk so you'll be less susceptible to that behavioral trap.