One idea might be to offer a discount or incentive for extended weekday stays—say, booking three or more nights—to encourage longer reservations.

*Keep a healthy reserve available to handle surprises when they occur.

Specifically, under a properly structured Trust the following limitations will apply during the period that the property is held by the Trust: (i) the Trust cannot raise new capital; (ii) other than in the case of a tenant bankruptcy or insolvency, the Trust cannot renegotiate or modify an existing loan nor can the Trust refinance or enter into a new loan during the period that the property is held by the Trust; (iii) the Trust cannot renegotiate or modify its existing leases or enter into new leases other than in the case of a tenant bankruptcy or insolvency (in the case of a Trust that adopted a master lease structure, this limitation applies to the master lease and not the underlying third-party leases); (iv) the Trust cannot reinvest the proceeds from the sale of the property; (v) the Trust cannot modify or improve the property other than undertaking normal maintenance or minor non-structural repairs; (vi) the Trust cannot hold its reserves other than in cash or short-term obligations; and (viii) the Trust must distribute all of its cash, other than cash held for normal reserves, on a current basis.

Just ensure the agreement is clear and formalized.Pooling reserves across properties might make sense if you’re confident in your cash flow and other contingencies.

I have a 4 unit that has a mortgage and consistently nets me 25-35k after everything each year including reserves.

However I like to run my numbers conservatively and account for cap ex, vacancy, maintenance reserves 10/5-7/5-7% respectively.

I am leaning towards that you should house hack if you're monthly payment and accounting for capex/opex/reserves make sense.

Mostly due to the fact my spouse and I agreed on her to have zero involvment in any sort of RE investing (and its our home) I think once you have a good 6-12 months of reserve cash (operating expenses for your own life saved as a back up incase things go bad) save enough liquidity to get the ball rolling on your first invesment.

The amount of money most people carry in their checking account fluctuates, but what’s ever there is called reserves.

NOI Underwriting Methodology: NRI and EGI, real estate taxes, operating expense underwriting rules of thumb, replacement reserves, appraiser’s impact on lender underwriting, expense comps, etc.10.