Some attempt to have you open up a joint bank account of their choosing so they can deposit the funds.

I thought of giving her a deposit slip, to make the deposit monthly, as there are bank branches closer to her than our PO box.

I had $1200 security deposit so I was out $300  plus 2.5 months rent.

Do you guys use auto deposit with your tenants?

Right now many of my tenants would need to mail money orders but I am looking into deposit-only ATM cards that will accept cash.

She wanted me to use the security deposit for July rent (I just wanted her out so I agreed).

They have disagreements and ask who gets the deposit.

You won't be able to get a "Full Approval" without an appraisal...and depending on your bidders deposit requirements, your risking that cash if for whatever reason, you can't borrow the balance due in time.  

You can put a property under contract and then assign the contract to one of the above mentioned, all for as little as $100 earnest money deposit. 

hi rowan. well, lets see. you need to take a first step. all previous answers are good answers. lets first look at why your credit is where it is. fixing a problem means first understanding the problem and how you got there. the first thing you are going to want to do is go on annualcreditreport.com. you can look at all 3 of your credit reports here, on line, in full. you need to see what is in there. even if there is a legit reason for the bad credit, you still could have things on there that are not yours. dispute anything negative. it seems unethical, but dispute ALL things negative. the reason being, the credit reporting agency is required by law to check up on anything you dispute. if the creditor that they contact does not answer back in 30 days, the credit reporting agency is required to remove the negative report from your report. thats right, even if it is correct, if the creditor is legit and the debt is legit, if they do not answer back in 30 days, it gets taken off your report. second, go to a local bank. take $1000 if you can. deposit the $1000 in a savings account. a month later, go take out a personal loan from that bank for $1000, using the savings account as collateral. rust me, they will give it to you because it is secured. take the borrowed $1000 to another bank and deposit it into a savings account. repeat the process several times. then when you get to the last bank and borrow the $1000, use that to pay off the first one and repeat that process. make sure you make all the payments along the way. what you are doing here is establishing credit with several banks. after a while, you will have several banks that will be willing to loan you money without collateral. then, check with your local cities on tax foreclosed houses. these are houses that the city and/or county have repossessed from owners because they did not pay their taxes. they sell them at auction and usually pretty damn cheap. i have bought one for $500 once, fixed it and sold it. its a good cheap way to start