If they're providing relaxed penalties to renters, they should at least provide similar terms for apartment owners with our hard costs on taxes, insurance and utilities of these properties.

I'm afraid if I say they cancel with 2 month penalty I could have some tenants cancel during spring semester if they drop of out school and I'm SOL for until next school year...

But using 7 or 10 year floating rate agency debt gives you the advantages of long term debt with the flexibility to exit or refinance when the timing is right with minimal penalty. 

I shopped around a ton of lenders and ended up on a lender that offered the following: 5/1 ARM 12 months interest only, 5.25%, 30 year amortization, 20% down, no pre payment penalty, and 50k of renovation funds.

I just closed on 3.875% with 30 year ammo and 2% pre payment penalty within the first 5 years if paid outside of bank with a local lender (Boston area for your reference)

@Spencer Gray With my local bank I'm at 3.8% fixed for 5 years, 80% LTV, no prepayment penalty as long as refi is in house, no net worth requirement.

One gets fined here in CA for $100 1st offence and more severe penalty as one is messing with equal housing law.

If they insist, I would make it clear, absolutely, 100% crystal no-misunderstanding clear, that you will NOT sign any personal guarantee on the loan under any circumstances, and if you get to the closing table and they stick one in front of you and tell you sign it or you lose the deal/deposit, you will walk away from that closing table.The reason I say this is that a number of SDIRA owners in the past have had exactly that happen, they thought it was non-recourse and then at the closing table were asked to sign a personal guarantee, and some of them did.BAM - that counts as "extending credit" to your IRA, which is a prohibited transaction, and my understanding is the IRS considers your whole IRA distributed at that point - and then proceeds to assess penalties and taxes accordingly.There are 1000 different ways to shoot yourself in the foot with SD IRAs, they are powerful but very tricky to get right, and the penalty for making a mistake can potentially be a lot of your retirement savings. 

Since I am already 59.5 I am not subject to the 10% penalty.

Deadlines are important because sometimes you can negotiate a reward/penalty agreement based on the contractor finishing before or after their deadline.