I also just fished reading your 7 Crazy Real Estate Investing Stories--very entertaining!

With online banking today, a defacto budget can be seen by, downloading all transaction from the first of the month to the last day of the month, eg Jan-1 thru Jan-31 in CVS format.double-click on the file and you get a spreadsheet.annotate each line by the kind of expenditure it is: {cash, food, utils, car, internet, entertainment,...}select the column with your annotations and sort ascending, extend the selection.If you know Excel, insert a line between the groupings, and SUM() the values of each groupwhoola! 

These types of properties have little cash flow until fully stabilized but much more equity growth on the back end to the investor.The partner investor or passive investor in a project has to decide what is acceptable to them.I generally do not entertain investments from number 1 because a stabilized asset with little upside makes me a glorified property manager which is not worth my time.

I was hoping you would entertain another question regarding the '10 Fannie Mae Property Limit'.

This post is for entertainment: Not to be construed as legal advice.

I have a few of those.. my last rentals are all higher end and are rented to white collar professionals.. most as you state just go about their business.One of my tenants .. was having a big party for her friends and was cooking and entertaining and the stove just was not good enough etc etc.. she kept $$$ at me and I finally went on line found a close out stainless steel very nice range that I would put in one of my new constructions..

I can entertain offers where the mobile home is in a park, or on land, and even homes that need to be moved.Best Regards,Jesse LynchRebel|Hawk Properties

If it does, you might consider buying your own water meters ($80-$100ish) and installing them, just to see what happens.I am not a lawyer and the following is not legal advice: Even if you can't legally submeter and charge the tenants for actual usage, I'm pretty sure you can install the meters for your own personal entertainment and education, and see how much each unit is using. 

Certainly not enough to be successful in paying her utilities, food, transportation costs, medical costs, entertainment costs, and other incidentals.Also, treat every applicant the same.

My BiggerPockets time has been severely cut right now due to my entertaining but time consuming low income tenants.