Or is it the case, that this rule of "one business day" is more of a loosely held rule and the one business day can turn into three or five? 

I kept my rule of thumb profit as a number rather than a percentage. 

If you can’t get what they estimate, it appears it would immediately draws you below the 1% rule.

Even then I need to be careful as there are more rules than there used to be.  

Pay off my house and get a first position HELOC on it.I'd then use the rest of the money to buy rental properties with about 40-50% down at the very least 1% rule.

In this case, especially if you're getting a better price and your sure a fairly identical unit next door has them, I might buy them.Another thought though is that if you don't supply them and therefore charged less, you might get the tenant who wants to pay less and actually does not want to use "someone's old washer and dryer."

So, you can see it doesn't fit into the 1%, 2% rules.

The properties and units are identical to each other, but the properties are totally different colors. 

Even though this  might not technically be against the rules some might think it goes against the spirit of the rules (in my opinion)  I am sure there are loan officers who will have a different take but truly the devils in the details.  

Remember the 50% rule.