If you have someone reserve a year, you can charge back utilities but it might be a lot of hassle.

Do you have W-2 Income, 20% down, reserves, and a decent credit score?

I like new construction since there isn't any deferred maintenance and the properties should be relatively maintenance free for the first couple years (although it's good to include maintenance/repairs in your pro forma and maintain reserves just in case). 

.$8,981 mortgage at 7%$2,918 expenses monthly 33.38% of Gross rental income (Prop mgt, maintenance reserve, utilities, Prop Taxes, Insurance, other)$6,852 NOI/monthly ($2,129) negative monthly cash flow..Same scenario with 50% down, $864 positive monthly cash flowNot saying it's the best use of capital or the only way to do it, instead providing an example using an available market opportunity to share what the numbers look like. 

Lots of experience, has some reserves, good market and flipper has a healthy income to recover if things go wrong (probably Not a problem in this situation)4.

We can't find the next opportunity, have little economy of scale, so I'm forced to keep our reserves high.

Even that manager needs to be really hard worker and skilled in so many different areas...sales, marketing management, hiring, firing, reservations, computer skills, and more.   

You need to simplify, not add more debt.Focus on education and building reserves.

Keep the property, keep more reserves than you think.

Apart from it being an awesome town, we are also land locked by the Navajo reservation and national parks.