I'm trying to sort out the pros/cons behind charging pet rent ($15-25/month) vs. a one-time non-refundable pet deposit ($250).  

In my mind buying a rental with all your liquidity is not something you should do unless you have a concrete plan to scale. you would be better off in the long term buying some sort of business or finding someone to back that is into short term quick profit deals and keep building your nest egg

YOu will then find out how motivated they are.  

For a long time lurker and now starting to invest, this is very motivating.

It helps your house looking clean sort of lol.  

These people are not going to risk a move to work at a startup like these absent some sort of premium or major upside.  

I look at what we do as a skill of sorts.

But, if your property doesn't really have anything special about it compared to the competition, then I suppose you might have to sort through them if you want to get the place rented.

I have been listening to the BP podcast a lot lately and it has gotten me motivated to make some better use of the equity that is available in this rental (conservatively there is 50k equity), and use it to leverage the purchase of another or couple other houses to get rented out.  

I don't have buyer agent and deal directly with listing agent.What can you do to motivate both to move forward without overpaying for the deal?