But, after a situation where a tenant threatened to break the lease, I realized how ineffective that smaller security deposit was- it wouldn't have been enough if the place had been vacant for a month or longer despite a reasonable attempt to find a replacement tenant.

That's exactly what I am attempting to do in finding a worthwhile multi-family home and utilize FHA for rehab.

I am attempting a similar strategy in ATL, and it seems to have legs.

This is my first attempt at an in depth question since joining the forums.

The property wont finance with a normal lender so I will attempt the seller carry until I can rehab it to refi into a conventional.

The only information for specific price he would give me (after several failed attempts) was the cost of the HVAC portion of the work and that was substantially greater than what an HVAC subcontractor had bid!

I am not saying privacy is not worth attempting , it will keep perhaps tenants and nutcases off your back.

If you simply lower rents, you may not end up with who you may want so much, anyone can apply and attempting to weed out non-students presents discrimination issues.I've done student rentals here, we had great experiences but I also have non-student applicants and tenants. 

I'm mostly interested in positive cash-flow after a 50%-of-PITI maintenance budget and 92% vacancy. 2% per month in rent is a hard number to come by, but 1% and above seems do-able.My plan and the specifics within it are always up for modification, and I feel like it will change drastically from where it is currently.That being said, I'm currently attempting to save a set amount per month on top of all the retirement accounts to get my emergency fund up to 6 months living expenses within the next year.

I attempt to establish credibility by making my posts as valuable and as helpful as possible for the reader/target market.