Contact the utility provider and get a historical average based on the last year of use.

Apologies for assuming the worst, but the post feels more like a pitch or marketing content than a standard forum post looking for help or providing subject matter expertise. 

If you're a single mom with student loans, a car payment, and living paycheck-to-paycheck, then $20,000 would be devastating and a reserve is critical.

Another way to say is that what is the value of the property (today) compared to what is owed on the loan?

Hey Marcus welcome to the community, I work in the Kansas City area and could provide some value to your investing journey.

The sale of our home will provide us with approximately $150,000 to allocate toward investments.At this stage, we feel most comfortable focusing on long-term rentals.

And there are lots of conventional loan programs where you can put down <20%If it were me, and I was committed to purchasing, I would try and land an off market property needing a bunch of work and force appreciation that way.

@Caleb Genry I am late to the party on this, but would greatly appreciate the spreadsheet/log if you are willing to provide it. 

I'd need the interest rate to be roughly 5% to breakeven on an interest-only loan, and was considering a balloon payment in 5-7 years.

I wonder if your local MLS provider has a list of MLS_only brokers in their system?