There are definitely hard money lenders out there that will look at the investment itself as collateral, but you must have enough skin in the game.

For the in-betweeners, I would research my competitors, and try (in many ways) to be & look better.Second, there are some amazing Formica (actually a brand name) colors now.

Lets assume she meets all of your criteria with flying colors..... and she is your best applicant.....but the issue is the dogs pissing on everything....and possibly vaping.You have documentation that her dogs are going to destroy your carpet....so you either factor that into a hefty deposit knowing that they will speed up the depreciation on the carpet..... or you say NO thanks.I would have ZERO issue with pointing out the FB stuff IF I needed to...... but I probably wouldn't since they will then take it down and the next landlord will have no idea.I would do nothing for now....keep showing, take more applicants and likely you will find a better choice.I personally don't notify tenants when they don't get the unit.....

Most of us have some skin in the game, we’ve done our research and have been through the struggles in one way or another.

Lets use 50k purchase as an example, if you put 25% down thats only 12.5k skin in the deal.

@Carol Frome This is a shot in the dark as I don't know VT real estate law, but here in MA, property managers (with a few exceptions) must be licensed to sell real estate and that makes them subject to state law.I'd check into it and see if he was required to disclose that he was placing a family member in the unit. 

i was recommended by one of those real estate gurus to use bridgewell on a flip. the paperwork was much like a conventional loan and not based on the value of the DEAL as the guru said......2 years income tax reports, credit checks, bank statements, statement of cash in the bank, skin in the game i think they called it, and it went on from there...i finally gave upand went back to flipping hamburgers

You will more-than-likely be met with a hostile, colorfully-worded response that may or may not include a threat of some sort.

But, there's a thousand ways to skin a cat!

That way you have some skin in the game.