And I believe their model enables most agents to have the benefits of owning their own brokerage without the risk or loss of their real estate sales business they’ve built over time. 

Your owners/landlord/dwelling fire policy should cover loss of rent that you can recover 

Would be interesting to hear from  a larger downtown apt mgr /owner to speak on their collection loss slow/no pay rate. 

I would only do that if you have a large amount of reserves, enough to cover this property for a few years and take the hit of any loss income (e.g. job) since the Fed is intent on creating a recession soon.Whether you intend to hold this property for a few years or forever, I wouldn't get the 20-year note.  

However it would be relatively easy for me to show a loss or breaking even on the property.  

Whereas if they have renters insurance, their insurance will relocated them, pay a per diem for food and cover any loss of personal items as a result of the damages incurred due to mold, pipe bursting etc.

I am at a loss on this one.

Even, then, how do you weigh the chances that you will guess the development path correctly versus the risk of a potential loss or no gain if you guess wrong?

However a single member LLC may not protect the owner from creditors.For tax purposes an LLC can file as an S Corp (file S election w/IRS first)No upper limits on the number of LLC members, S Corps up to 100No restrictions on LLC ownership interests (flexible), an S Corp can have only 1 class of stock but can have differences in voting rightsSpecial allocations in income, gain, or loss in an LLC is permitted but not in an S Corp they allow pro rata allocations because of the stockIn regards to distribution and contribution of property (not cash) an LLC may have tax advantages over the S Corp.

So expensive a fix that the deposit may not cover it and unlikely you will recover that from the tenant later.