Home warranties can sometimes cover rental properties, but it really depends on the specific terms of the warranty and the provider.

With investor's properties, depend on how risk averse they are, I fall under either just follow their criteria or maybe coach them my insight if I feel they are open to ideas.

It depends on a lot of factors; primarily the local jurisdiction rules that may limit lease changes (in Portland/Oregon rent, security deposit, screening fees, an no-cause evictions are heavily regulated).

For context, downtown Alexandria performs super well as a rental market and bringing in $5.5k+ as the monthly rental income if you choose to move out of the househack in the future will be absolutely feasible (depending on the property of course).

Just depends on your strategy but my best advice is to take a drive through those areas.

We see a tightening or restricting of coverage, higher deductibles, more tedious underwriting requirements, and increasing rates.As far as deductibles specifically, it really depends where you are in the country. 

If you're only using a portion of the funds, its less of a risk and could make sense depending on your situation and the deal itself.  

Market might be competitive but there is angles to stand out depending on what you are comfortable and able to handle, such as waiving an appraisal contingency, limitng inspection rights and time frames, closing time frames, allowing seller to stay-post closing, taking on difficult tenants, buying properties that might need repairs, etc.

There's many other options in real estate such as syndication and note investing depending on your level of involvement. 

@Roy Gottesdiener The answer to question is it depends... on your market, strategy to buy RE, long term goals, and interest rates on your current properties.