If you're unwilling to charge a common fee, I wonder how you're going to handle a problematic tenant who is late on rent or responsible for paying the plumber to remove a kid's underwear from a clogged toilet.How will you conduct a credit/criminal screening without an electronic application?

I am scared to pay for the lack of interest. 

I'd purchased it on a land contract, paying interest only for the first 5 years, with the ability to extend another 5 years if I'm not able to find favorable financing to refinance within that time period.

Set aside a big pile of cash or rely on a line of credit you won't be using.The oversimplified insurance concept is to pay a small premium to cover a large loss.

These deals have so much meat on the bone that paying a capital partner is a no brainier..  

Imagine you make $100k and you are affected by 3 tax brackets.0-33k =-33K 0%33,001-66k 10%66,001 - 100k 20%You can take $100k in deductions this year and pay zero taxes, for one year and then $10,100 for for 2 years  ($20,200 total)You can take 67k in deductions this year and pay zero taxes for a year, take 33k the second year and pay $6,800 year two and $10,100 year 3. ($16,900 total)You can take 33k each year and pay $3,300 in taxes all 3 years. ($9,900 total)Obviously this is simplified but unless you expect to make much less and be in a lower tax bracket in the future those deductions could come in handy.

your comment around "approvals will be easy to get" gives me pays if you've not done this type of project before, I understand your logic, and I don't know your local municipality but it always seems to me that no matter how easy we think a project or approval is going to be, something always comes up.

Having owned property in rockford its not a great appreciation area so getting a HELOC will probably take 5-10 years based on loan pay down and maybe some slight appreciation.

Or could I 3 properties flow into one account and pay all expenses from there.  

@Nadir M. you would show 100% of whatever you collected on behalf of an owner.Of course, if tenant pays via credit card, you would NOT include the credit card fees, because you did not receive them.From the funds in your OPERATING account, you would pay any expenses on behalf of the owner, including your management fees - which you woul transfer to your PMC account.Owner will be paid from Operating account.Your vendors (office expenses, auto, etc) would be paid from your PMC account.Year end, you are require by IRS to send a 1099 with GROSS amount collected on behalf of owner.