This potentially caused us to lose out on a few other tenants who were ready to begin the lease ASAP, but we decided to go with this couple because they had better credit scores and financial situation.Does anyone have any advice on ways to prevent this from happening, such as including a fine for people backing out or requesting the security deposit upon signing of the lease?

I’m not losing much, it’s the idea that gets me.

The rate of return isn't great, but its just a place to park money and not lose so much value to inflation while it sits.

I see people buying left and right - however when I "work out the numbers" considering income (rents) minus - mortgage, taxes, insurance, vacancy (5%), maintenance (5%), cap x (5%), and sometimes PMI the properties just do not cash flow and sometimes lose money every month. 

Do I need to sue him for his carelessness? 

What Brie was referencing was if you do something that loses you the grandfathered zoning status.

“However, it’s not like home flipping has become a losing proposition.

The problem with getting what's known as a Property Information Report is that liability for an error is limited to the amt paid for the report no matter how much you lose relying on it. 

A bit heated discussion with one member not happy at all after losing his 10% deposit and a rep from RealPro responding at length regarding the entire timeline of the failed transaction.By the way deposit is 10% NOT $10K, so on a $500,000 listing the deposit is 50 GRAND .

You don't need a HML in the Philly area, you need one who can evaluate the market and Philly is a good market for HML because it's pretty hard to lose money right now unless you buy absurdly high or mismanage your flip or BRRRR.