You'll often have to haul garbage out of these properties, but hey, buy real estate at low cost is always your gain and someone else's loss and that almost always means you're dealing in human misery.Starting with a flip and going from there to buying rental properties is often putting the cart before the horse.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I would rather know from the outset.I have to insure I don't get a 14 thousand dollar bill after my rental is reduced to rubble.Just learning.

If the market changes I do not want to be in the middle of a very large project that stalls or implodes.

I'll beat a dead horse here, but IMO it depends on how much equity you have and your budget.

Similar to what I’ve heard about horse racing.

I am not sure why you insist on continuing to beat this dead horse. 

If there's a hole, it may be a red flag.b) sensitivity analysis: I examine all the assumptions, and make sure I can live with the worst case scenarios.c) "Stall and see": if they are getting money over multiple years, and there is no penalty for investing later, I would usually wait so I get some real performance data, versus having to look at theoretical pro forma information.d) Recession stress test: I will not invest in anything, until I subject it to recession level stress and see if I can live with the result.

So at least on new builds if things come to a halt there will be projects that stall and don't get built..

For beginners, we often tend to put the cart before the horse.

Pre GSE, it was so bad it hurt the economy and stalled recovery from the crash of 1929.