If he rents he needs to move to a less expensive apartment, cell phones, cable TV, restaurants, car payments are all unnecessary and wasteful expenses that can be eliminated.

Generally I eliminate these peopl early.

For the CD you will also need to pay tax on it whereas you might be able to deduct enough from the rental revenue to eliminate most of the tax (please consult with a tax advisor on what you can include in your tax return). 

It's those maniacs that buy homes cash via quit claim deed off of craigslist that really get screwed.Make sure your property manager is a licensed real estate brokerage.Understand you can not eliminate all risk, only mitigate it.

This will eliminate $70/month I pay in PMI.

If you eliminate properties of that age from your search your options will likely be pretty limited though.

Are there really more people that go out of their way to eliminate pet friendly rentals than people that are looking for pet friendly rentals? 

Whether they do a good job eliminating bogus ESA verifications may be less important than if the perspective tenant believes they do a good job eliminating bogus ESA verifications.  

Based on our experience, we eliminate more than half of these properties.

I do not claim that they do a great job of eliminating bogus ESA.