Raising the rents 25% once every 5 years "hurts way more" than 5% each year (not to mention you get a bigger raise with the latter due to compounding).

Id be comfortable with $50k and using the other $50k as a down payment for another rental.I think once you first start, aim to get that reserve account filled ASAP and then just leave everything in it and keep letting it grow monthly to be defensive, don't use it for your life style, so you can buy more and repeat the process. 

You are literally compounding risks, you could not lay it out much worse if you tried!

Then once the investments compound, you can choose to divest it and buy a house with low to no debt, and the differential on rent/mortgage goes into other investments.House hacking is a low hanging fruit.

Insurance is always a great first line of defense with an umbrella policy being a great way to protect in case anything unfortunate were to happen.

If we bite off people’s heads when they admit disaster, it suppresses legitimate issues with these techniques.Just for context there is a lot of history with the OP and some of us on here going back years (like the thread I linked to above from about a year ago and several others if you use the search function with his name) with him minimizing the risks of how he was structuring these transactions and some of us being cautionary, warning him that exactly what happened here could happen, which made him defensive and dismissive. 

Because they will get defensive if they feel you are pressuring them.

Appreciation is a RESULT of the BETTER, compounded by supply/demand curve, compounded by inflation. 

Montgomery County's total Biotech workforce made up 51,490 employees in Q4 of 2024, giving the area a strong reputation in the Biotech / Life Science sector while also having other diversified between federal health agencies, biotech, defense, and hospitality.

Not understanding compound interest3.