Be precocious and always have a bigger buffer than you think you need.  

We may not need that much to retire once we get there, but that's our "safe" number that should provide a buffer for medical insurance/emergencies, travel, and provide care for our aging parents.So, there you have it...

This gives enough buffer for a good BRRRR, even without factoring in appreciation as these older neighborhoods grow.

You are beating the 1% rule, have a very nice equity buffer, some positive cash flow, decent neighborhood and no money down. 

When I was forced to escrow tax, not only did I have to pay 1/12 of the annual bill every month, but they also required a buffer of something like an additional 30%. 

You won't be incurring these every year..I think you should sit down and just run the numbers for the next 12 months, taking into consideration only what you expect to spend to operate the property, expect to spend on maintenance and a buffer for emergency repairs.

So I’m not saying that we might not see some weakness, but people really underestimate how hard people will fight not to sell thier house, especially if they have a sub 3-4% mortgage, it would actually increase their payments to move, the vast majority of people I know could make ends meet on one salary & certainly one salary + some getting even a job they were overqualified for, people here especially in the areas being cited are by in large extremely well off with large savings and have plenty of area where they could cut back, eating out travel etc, I do worry about some of our less affluent counties & some areas where remote workers moved, but the core of dc would have a large, likey years long buffer before they would be forced to sell.

Winter is slower around here for sure but I’ve stayed around 85% occupancy by adjusting pricing and staying on top of it.Get ready to be busy the other 9 months out of the year.As far as the STR market slowing down around here, it’s bound to happen so make sure you’re not over leveraging and build yourself plenty of buffer for when that happens.

This, it turned out, would help avoid any possible underlying worries I had about paying late fees or penalties if I forgot to pay on time, had an inability to send it in for any reason, or simply wanted a month off in case a repair came along or a tenant left and I had to fix up the property for the next occupant and wanted extra cash to buffer reserves and cover expenses.

If I were to put 20% down on a house I would not have much of a buffer left to cover that rehab and if I ran out of capital before finishing it seems fairly risky.