Maintenance and Cap Exp Reserve amounts

[Rob Toste]

Hi Bigger Pockets,

I am trying to "sharpen our pencils" so to speak when it comes to proper reserve amounts for rental properties and I am having a difficult time finding concrete answers to this topic. I have searched up and down the forums but I am only finding topics that discuss reserve amounts for "PITI" and some other smaller maintenance items. To me, those items are a lot more simple to save or reserve for.

The difficulty that I am having is when it comes to larger items, such as New HVAC and knowing how much to put away given its useful life when a property is acquired, Painting a property, new roofs (along with determining its useful life), redo of blacktop for parking lots (especially older properties).....these larger capital expenditure items are a lot more difficult to determine in my opinion aside from putting money away for unforeseen maintenance items or vacancy. 

Also a little context I am more so talking about commercial real estate (single or tenant office/restaurants/shops properties) and multifamily properties rather than single-family dwellings.