And whatever you do, put your right hand over your wallet pocket and stay away from the gurus. . .let me say again, real estate is neighborhood regional, and no national "Armando Montelongo Guru" will teach you anything except to make them rich with your investment grocery money.We are stronger together,Tevis

There is good and bad with monthly costs, but overall SFR tends to be a stronger investment long term.  

Stronger school districts and steady population and job growth.  

If a borrower can't cut the deal with a bank or broker, I would not get involved.Same holds true for these investors trying to buy as investments, if they came to you, they are weak players, not at all like residential where there is a much stronger market.

You are stronger than you know, and this community supports you in ways you don't even know yet.

(not to mention your offer looks stronger to the seller if its a conventional loan opposed to FHA). 

You also should have rent appreciation, and a balance sheet that gets stronger each year.

Which in turn feeds right back into stronger appreciation, aaaand we're back at square one: use 1% because of the appreciation.Those places where folks use the 2% test, they are implicitly saying that they aren't going to get a lot of appreciation, so they demand more cash flow.I'll tag @J.

Dallas is having some moderate appreciation that I am enjoying now but western Washington has much stronger appreciation and rising rents.For a duplex I would be having the tenants pay for their own garbage which is the norm around here.

There are easily 100 reasons not to do something, but at the risk of sounding cheesy, here it goes: Your "why" must be stronger than your "why not."