I tell our customers all of the time, when you're steadily pursuing highly distressed leads with this criteria it's not a question of if, but how often you will contact the heir to a property who either didn't realized they owned, or they though the property had already been auctioned off by the bank or county.  

I know 50 percent seems extreme, but considering how high things have come since 2019 with Covid demand etc, I don’t think we need an apocalyptic event to see 50 percent revenue haircuts, just a typical recession will likely do considering far we have risen. it seems like a 30 percent drop in rents will wipe away profit and anything beyond you will have to come out of pocket for assuming in interpretations correctly.if you have to go negative how long can you sustain payments?

Nothing comes easy in life and neither does building a large/sustainable real estate portfolio. 

My overall goal with real estate is to have a small portfolio of STRs and LTRs that I'd hold to sustain my lifestyle going forward.

That's a giant red flag for that grocer potentially declining to renew their lease, vegan gluten free customers don't want to walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke to get to their ethically sourced non-GMO organic avocado, and obviously the "no smoking within 50 feet" sign is going to be ignored by the customers of that neighboring business, who are all a bunch of smokers.

Customers with good credit end up paying more when they use a "Broker" or Lender who are simply the "middle men".The other thing is there are new programs that only require 15% down for 2-4 units and almost all lenders and brokers require 20% to 25% or more for 2-4 unit multifamily investment purchases.

Also, I think it will be difficult to not have the buyers try to turn me into a custom home builder if they're securing the loan.

I work with mobile home dealerships and many of their customers end upgrading to new homes while selling their used homes.

After completing the remodel, I plan to switch to a different insurance policy and be refunded the unused portion of the escrow, making this approach a win-win for improving my home and saving money on insurance.Additionally, by paying 5% down and planning to reach 22% equity in the property to eliminate PMI, I'm taking proactive steps to reduce my monthly expenses and make homeownership more affordable and sustainable in the long term.ConclusionI'm curious to hear from the BiggerPockets community: have you found that renovations can help reduce insurance costs?

When I was working for banks and did financial planning for customers, we used 3.1% as an assumption.