You could also have a "belly" in your line causing stuff to pile up over time.So I agree with others that a camera inspection is the best approach and the best time to do it is when your toilet is removed to fix the wax seal problem.

Is the juice worth the squeeze... ? 

Give us the juice because buying/owning apartment communities is a goal of mine.

Hello Kenyette Godhigh-Bell I would love to connect with you.

Originally posted by @Bill Bell:"I have an up/down rental where the upstairs tenant is responsible for the electric bill."    

In your case Jon, what you could not forsee is that because of the recession most of those popular nightspots went belly up and this trendy area became a run of the mill neghborhood where the prices never really recover.

Depending on the condition of the house, I sometimes lower the R&M or Capex lines to 5% but this starts to feel a bit risky - am I just juicing my numbers and kidding myself?

Philip it depends on if you are holding for a few years for a run up in a market to exit or are you holding in a long term growth area for retirement etc.Capital risk exposure comes into play as well.If you own a 100k house out of your net worth of 2,000,000 and it goes belly up it likely will not have that great of an impact because if your other investments are sound you can recover that loss in a short period.If you buy a 100k house and have 20k leftover and the deal goes bad it could take you under.Investing is like taxes.

Keep those creative juices flowing though @Matt Geerts.  

This way if and when the crash happens, your all money is not tied up nor you are belly up.