Determining appetite for risk in terms of leverage

[Jonathan Hasan]

Hello BP community,

As a new investor,  I feel like a core pillar upon which success is built in real estate from what I have seen from other experts in this forum is being able to determine acceptable risk for a deal. Rushing in to a deal with leverage as a new investor could be disastrous for reasons that could result from lack of due diligence or circumstances out of their control. I basically am trying to compile a plan based on any suggestions given. 

To start the discourse I will use a hypothetical, if I have a W-2 job that is paying 31200 a year gross pay and have a credit score of say 750 with about 2500 in savings, should the focus be on trying to save enough to get an unleveraged property deal which will obviously take a while or should I take a risk and take a Loan (HML, PML etc) for a fixed up buy and hold if I can make the deal work on paper? (Perhaps some experts may argue its not really a risk if you can make it work on paper but I am trying to account for worst case scenarios such as if a tenant doesn't pay rent and affects cash flow of HML, PML etc)

While I am excited about real estate, I want to have a level head in determining whether leverage should be used or not in the situation listed above. I would like the expert opinions of anyone who would be willing to share. 

Thanks in Advance