I would use 10% of your total return earmarked for cap ex/ maintenance.

Our members will be fully funded on their earmarks. 2.

.- thanks for clarifying -  sounds like using the  cash earmarked  is the  best  bet  then 

spoke with a  small builder that has a project  earmarked  to make close to  170K   ...but due to delays  for multiple  diff reasons  - he  recently sold the  property and made less than  20K  ( he  worked on this for  over a year )!

Just wondering how much people typically earmark for their insurance policy.

Do the numbers make sense and are you willing to move into either a property earmarked for another rental, or the house you stay at?

Just because it's technically in a checking account doesn't mean the funds can't be "ear marked" for something else.  

However, this isn't what it's going on there.The Mexican government has earmarked the area for low-density luxury eco-tourism so it won't be the next Riviera Maya.

All transactions flow through that account.2: I also opened a savings account which is helpful to earmark money set aside as a reserve, outside of my monthly revenue and expenses.3: I got a dedicated credit card from the bank that's only used for the real estate.4: I happen to use QuickBooks Online which is set up to automatically pull transactions from all three of the chequing, savings, and credit card.

Counting security deposits I’ve got about 2 months in reserves earmarked for the rental property.