I think a lot of folks are sitting on or building up cash reserves as rates have squeezed a lot of the potential cash flow opportunities of years past. 

Keeping some savings/reserve was important. 

If you need a new job once you move, you will need an offer letter prior to closing on your new home (and you will need 6 months reserves in order to be able to use the offer letter as income). 

The letter goes like this:  By the way we have underfunded our reserves, so we need $5000 from each condo owner by July 1st, in order to replace the roofs....

A cash-out refi could allow you to set aside some funds as a reserve or at least pay down your debts so that your lines of credit (credit cards etc) can act as your emergency reserve when more bad things happen. 

Do you raise for your reserves and capex, or do you hope your cash flow will cover it? 

@Ken Almira don't buy a Florida condo w/o checking that they've passed their engineering inspection and their reserves meet the new requirements.

R  Resevres:  Needed for downpayment and Emergency Reserve.  

You'll still need some liquidity for reserves and to be reimbursed for work completed in draws, however its usually limited to 10-20% of the rehab budget needed in reserves to make the deal work.You're welcome to DM for more details if interested. 👍 Good luck!

We had to enter in holding costs, holding time (time value of the money), ARVs, rehab costs, a contingency reserve (a little extra to cover unforseen stuff), a reasonable profit margin, etc to get to a "Strike Price" as we call it.