The appraiser used much smaller homes than ours and added the incremental sqft at only $33/sqft, which must be some standard they use.

in a standard septic system it consists of a tank and leach lines that run out from the tank.

All that being said, the standard BiggerPockets.com mantra is that equity represents lost money and opportunity cost, there are plenty of voices that logically and coherently argue that side of the debate (who will be joining this thread shortly), so by all means weigh all options, figure out what works for you given your particular goals and risk tolerance, and there is no "one size fits all" solution. 

One can always argue that the quality of properties may be better in CA, but I'm of the belief that quantity has a quality of its own.  

I’m on top of standard listings and price reductions - and am a pretty good negotiator, LOL.

That's the standard FNMA HomeStyle program you just described.

Industry standard is 10% per monthly rent for vacancy, repairs and maintenance and capital expenditures.

We also think very similarly and have similar standards/risk tolerance, so there wasn't any interpersonal conflict.I've had so much fun with that rental over the last year, I took up managing a 3 unit in N.

Remember the worst tenants are usually the best con-artists.Stick to your criteria, if you have plenty of applicants raise the bar in the areas where you can in choosing the "best" fit and never lower standards to try to make a otherwise unacceptable applicant fit. 

Investing time in identifying my standards, and building tools to use them to filter our properties, has saved me a ton of time.