My partner and I are not very good landlords and not good at collecting rent.

And I advise you to collect rent from each individual separately, rather than as a group.In many cases students don't have credit history.

Keep in mind, its not how much money you can collect at move but how dependable is the tenant over x amount of years.

Investor money (downpayment) came from a paypal software engineer and ceo of a china based pharmaceutical company. while in rehab (super ugly at the time), I rented each unit out for 2800 starting in January and collected first months rent and deposits for a cool 8400/month for the entire building.

If they do more damage you can always pursue collections and get a judgement.

Then, you can absolutely draft a new lease for the tenants to sign and collect the additional money to ensure you have an adequate security deposit.

Too bad the bad apples required a law passed to make it more clear what a landlord was entitled to, liability to relet is on the owner and the right to collect rents is over with a new lease.

I have a great track record with fast leasing (<15 days vacant on average) and rent collection (100% over 7 years).

During the option period what should I ask for from the seller to verify that rents are being collected?

Who would be some 3rd parties that could collect/process the monthly payments and send it to her, and end of the year statements.