Cash needed for first rental?

[Joshua Ferguson]

Hello all, I’m just starting out and want to get into rental properties and my question is how much money do you recommend having in savings when starting out? I don’t want to buy my first property only to find out some major expense pops up and I don’t have the savings to cover it. I’m looking at a duplex to fourplex for my first property and just want to make sure I have enough of a safety net before I jump in. Thanks!

[Brian Ellis]

I just bought my first duplex, I was advised by @JD Martin to have at least 10k in reserves. Im glad I took his advice, because immediately I had to deal with some unexpected costs. Renovation is about 1k more then I had anticipated (which isn't bad). But I will also have the month of October vacant in one unit. 

The two weeks leading up to the closing, I was hit with some unexpected costs with my dog where he needed surgery. So that cost me about $1500. I was always concerned about having reserves for the house I was buying, but completely disregarded reserves for life outside of RE. Now I know why it is so important, because I may have been in trouble if I didn't take those extra steps to save more.