We have cash reserves to sustain it without eating into W2 income assuming no disasters, for the whole loan, though I’d prefer not to do that.

When faced with rising expenses, and let's be fair, skyrocketing expense growth, right, a business has 3 choices; (a) eat it and ride into bankruptcy. 

Seminole for Example has a lot of great traffic and tons of spots to eat, drink, socialize for adults and kids.I know Cape Coral is picking up in terms of STR's with the complettion of the 7 Mile Island and more construction lately. 

Kitchen will have all amenities including dishwasher, fridge, oven, garbage disposal, walk-in pantry with microwave, eat-in island, etc.

Now if he paid a good price ok so eat it your still " in the money" Well, he was charge 160k about 50k Overpriced.

Some home builders are eating profits buying down the rates with the lenders to get into the 4's or 5's fixed but it comes at a steep cost many tens of thousands in fees upfront to the lender.

Any smart lock that is using wifi (versus bluetooth or Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter) will eat up a battery.

Also is insurance premiums eating up cash flow? 

Rentals create cash flow, and that's what we want as real estate investors, but you need cash on hand for unforeseen circumstances.The AC needs to be replaced, that's $7K to $10K or more depending on the size of the house and if you have one rental, it will eat all your cash flow, same to replace a roof, etc, or if tenant trash the home, you need money to fix it again.To me personally a nice rental portfolio that is healthy consists about 10 units, so if you have an issue with a house the portfolio can cover the repairs and still healthy, but when starting you need to have cash on hand just in caseYes, there are multiple strategies you can use to hack your way to buy your first rental with minimum cash, but I would start wholesaling or fix and flip a few deals to create that cash as fast as possible

If you hire a professional management company, then that of course will also eat into your profits.