What are the differences and when can you allocate some of your building depreciation to equipment...

Better return vs risk. compared to the larger more expensive property.What would be a more accurate percentage of rent that you would allocate for maintenance and capex now that you see more realistic numbers from  your properties?

Allocate extra monthly principal payments towards your mortgage principal.

In the nine situations specified,lenders may not enforce due-on-sale provisions in real property loans“secured by a lien on residential real property containing lessthan five dwelling units, including a lien on the stock allocated toa dwelling unit in a cooperative housing corporation, or on aresidential manufactured home.”If you are interested and want toknow exactly what the law says, as applicable to you, you can read ithere,https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...

Under Contract for a duplex Should I always pick up the cost of the water, sewage, and garbage or is it common to hand off some of these costs to the tenant? Or just add it to the cost of the rent. 

I could go out and buy any of the cards they drive, but I think it would be a bad allocation of capital.

To us, this meant they had a decent amount of discretionary income they could allocate towards rent if something else went wrong in life.

Another method mentioned above is the RUBS system for allocating utilities, which has the same basic result.I can say from experience that very sophisticated, very professional teams are building institutional-grade apartment buildings with 100+ units in Seattle that do not have individual meters for all utilities.

You can find the proposed budget, allocations of funding and the justifications for allocations if you're really concerned after being excited by a "news" article.

For us, i would rather allocate the time my maintenance staff uses to turn apartments and take care of maintenance calls.