There is no way of saying which borrower or tenant will default except through good underwriting practices and the ability to read people, I don't miss very often and there are aspects of life, those "financial life events" that can never be foreseen in advance.As to bands of investment/price, not really as I'm an underwriter type and consider each property in relation to the market demand, market rents or collateral nature, to the tenant/borrower.

Without it, a TB or seller could waltz out of the agreement and rightfully demand that all of their monies be returned.

Even if you don't want to rent to section 8 they will probably know what they have more demand for.

We have a severe rental housing demand in town, so I feel very confident that like the house next door we could get $700.

If a tenant has lived there a long time and has a lot of junk and you are making demands to move and leave in broom swept condition that can cost them a ton of money for dumpsters etc.

My concern is that demand will continue to dwindle or that the appreciation will go under zero into negative.

Maybe, if the right property could be found.Is there a big enough demand for vacation rentals in Seattle?

How strong is the rent demand?

As you know it's extremely restricted wrt growth, has tons of tech money pouring in, and is in constant demand.

Definitely no cash flow to be had from the first two options, and flipping is a totally different animal from what you are really looking for it sounds like (passive income), plus aside from the risk of flipping in general as someone with no flipping experience, you are also taking on risk with having partners set up like that.