@Greg Scott I just don't want to waste my hard earned money on something that looks bad haha.

If this is relevant for your market and operations: Assume that you will take home 1/3 of the commissions earned from a sale (which BTW is more like 2.7% per sale, NOT 6%, and really not 3% if you're taking the long view of the data). 

Best of luck on your career. 

I am currently a second grade teacher looking to turn real estate into my full time day to day career.

I'll give you the 3ish books that have been MOST instrumental to me in real estate investing:The Millionaire Real Estate Investor - Jay Papasan and Gary KellerThe Book on Flipping Houses and its cousin The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs by J ScottThe ABCs of Real Estate Investing by Ken McIlroyIn these pages you'll find few, if any, shiny objects of "the one thing that's going to make you rich forever", but rather you'll find proven, fundamental strategies that work and are prudent to build your investing career off of.

Keep in mind, those are marginal tax rates, so you'll only pay that tax for the dollars earned in each bracket.  

No, she shouldn't just outright blanket refuse to give it back before she moves, but, after she moves, if the tenant can't prove a deposit was made, or she didn't earn it by cleaning, what possible benefit could there be to giving this woman $300?

IF Partner 2 shows reasonable signs of being able to execute the deal (hopefully a firm understanding of the process, experience at some level before, or at least watches a lot of HGTV) then that would hopefully earn Partner 2 a third of the deal, or you could argue for up to half of the deal depending on the workload or scarcity of Partner 2.Them's ma thoughts. 

Congratulations on your success on your career so far. 

When COVID recedes, when the equity market loses the mania and prices dive down (possibly dramatically) to reflect future earnings potential, and when people start getting laid off or told that their office is going fully virtual and they can work from anywhere in the country, I have to assume that that is when we are going to start seeing the dramatic effects of the gargantuan pan-American urban/suburban-area real estate bubble burst.