What's your opinion on the ROI when accounting for Maintenance, Vacancy, and Capital Expenditures savings?

(other than capital expenditures).  

Management decisions that are relevant in determining whether you actively participate include approving new tenants, deciding on rental terms, approving capital or repair expenditures, and other similar decisions.There is a phase out if your MAGI is above $100,000(2016). 

I don't know to estimate annual income growth, annual expenses growth, capital expenditures, etc.

Just be conservative and run your numbers to include vacancy, maintenance, capital expenditures & property management.  

Establish record-keeping systems to track expenditures.

Rent minus mortgage does not equal cashflow.Taxes (after purchase re-assessment if purchase price is higher than current city valuation)InsuranceWaterSewerGas/Electric (if payed by owner)RepairsCapital Expenditures VacancyProperty management (even if you intend to self manage, calculate this for the future if you eventually want to be hands off)Trash removalDon't go with your blinders on, do a real analysis on what the actual expenses will be.

@Joseph Gamatoria  That's correct -- the broker (who also owns the property management company) had full access to actual operating data but chose to omit these larger expenditures with the justification that they were non-recurring and therefore wouldn't be representative of future operating costs. 

I also printed out a complete MLS break down of the target property along with what our expectation of income would be once we obtained ownership including what capital expenditures it would cost to get it to our standard of cash flow.

Thanks Robert, That would be a great case study to see if overall the energy output within a year or so combined with the grants, buy back, and saved energy expenditures would be worth the initial cost of the solar panels and installation.