Don't finance something you intend to hold long-term with money that balloons, adjusts, bubbles, etc. in a few years4.

And I won't move at warp speed for someone because their lease ends in four days and they need something immediately.

I use a small local bank and get "commercial" loans. 5.75% with 1/2 pt, fixed for 5 yrs and then adjusts.

If the contract price is $150K and the appraisal comes in at $135K, you'll either have to drop the price to $135K or the buyer will have to bring an extra $15K to the table.For FHA loans, the appraisal will follow the property for six months, so going to another lender or getting a new appraisal won't help unless you wait six months.Now, you do generally have recorse if you think the appraiser chose poor comps or adjusted the values improperly.

If you bought gold in the 1980's at $860-ish/oz, you wouldn't get your money back yet (in inflation-adjusted dollars).

And I may not always agree with Eddie Speed's teaching but I can also say that Eddie does not commit fraud.  

My starting point for repairs is usually 5% of rent, but depending on the  age of the home, location of the home, and types of tenants I am attracting, I will adjust repairs up to 10-12% of gross rents.Have you incorporated taxes and insurance?

This is one reason why we find month-to-month agreements work better than long-term leases.About pest control service... either have the tenant pay for it directly to the pest control company or include it in the rent and adjust the rent upwards accordingly.

In a suburb you can use 3-5 miles.I try to look 6 months but sometimes have to go 1 year, never moreSquare footage is +/- 15%bedrooms don't have to be exact, it can be +/- 1 but that needs to be accounted for like everything else in your adjustments 

Meanwhile my realtor put in some work on the MLS and found 3 completely different ones in much more comparable areas but they refused to adjust the appraisal.