Plus old growth lumber tears up my speed bits. :)

On top of that, if you went ahead and did the work without a permit, a building inspector could come to your home and make you tear out all the renovations you did. 

I have had friends that did real estate really well but due to self sabotaging they kept tearing down what they worked so hard to build.

I just consider it normal wear and tear (as opposed to damage).

Upon move-out, any and all damage beyond normal wear and tear will be assessed against their deposit.Whatever you do, 100% do not come by to pick something up that they were supposed to have already delivered to you.

If the fence is in fact on the church's property, the church can likely do as they please with the fence, including tear it down.

These are older properties that have experienced significant wear and tear and require expensive updates to their systems.You may think that I do not like multi-family properties, but this is not true.

Once they are in, if ANYTHING looks wrong, you will likely need to tear it out and go through the whole process, and pay potential penalties, and possibly have the unit/property deemed uninhabitable, in which case you are also out the rent.

My plan with the living room ceiling was to tear down the ugly 1x4s on the ceiling assuming it served no structural purpose.

In my experience, newer homes in great neighborhoods may not: 1) have the type or frequency of vacancy that the spreadsheet projects out (4% vacancy assumption means the house is vacant 2 weeks a year...generally see renters stay in a home over a year, so your vacancy is drastically down), and 2) Newer homes can generally come with less expenses and capex; the tenants also treat A or B+ class homes better so there's just a lot less wear and tear which is usually reflected in your maintenance/repairs being lower than budgeted.If you go the Airbnb route, just drop HOA'd communities from your search criteria.