This group helped to learn the steps of risk mitigation, wealth  and real estate opportunity assessment hence gave me the tools to put "fear" under control.Like the say ....

You still look good on paper (cash flow), you can still pay it off in 15 years if you want, you have risk mitigation if the market goes down, and banks like to see profit rather than losses.

Now that I pay for the materials I've mitigated that happening quite a bit and I either pay for labor on weekly draws based on work completed or sometimes in thirds. 

Risk mitigation is essential to successful investing.

The 37 day before foreclosure sale date to submit a loss mitigation application is long gone as well.

I agree with some of your concerns, but if you structure your lease term from August-June, you could mitigate the vacancy and still receive rent for 11/12 months, with one month to turnover the rental and complete any improvements that are needed.

Ways to mitigate this is to try and target (in accordance w/ fair housing) older students and/or grad students - they are typically much more independent.

You potentially completely mitigate taxes altogether using the 1031.  

No doubt as real estate investors we get taxes coming from multiple angles...thank goodness for the mitigating deductions.  

A good turnkey company will have a high (and consistently tracked) occupancy rate and other good performance metrics so doing your due diligence when selecting a partner will go a long way to mitigating these risks.