So I shot for lower profit margins and was willing to be a little less picky on the property and it's location.

Under the new tax cuts and jobs act, the same income amount is now in a lower marginal bracket.

Not sure what the margin of error is but the site might supply that.

The margins aren't wide enough (cash flow is negative even without paying insurance) and the reserves aren't deep enough in this deal to allow for a cushion when things go wrong, which they inevitably do. 

If you have a W-2 job, 1) you rental income gets added to your income and gets taxed at your marginal rate2) if you have a loss, and your AGI is below 100k, you will get to deduct loss up to 25k against the W-2 income ( this is where the tax saying comes in). 

I also don't want all of the mechanicals to be old because on single family homes capex can destroy years of cash flow since the margins are tighter.

Pockets of explosive growth are shrinking and rehab margin across the board feel tighter.

Margin is too tight on the flip for my liking.

Guess doubles are good tooBut heres the issue, every time I find a new property, get it, start demo, do the numbers, I tend to say "this will be my highest margins yet" ....... then the closing costs come and Im furious. 

House flipping is at a six year high now so the competition is high and people are seeing less profit /slimming margins on average as a result.