If your short on cash or reserves you can always use a DPA program - Down Payment Assistance. 

@Clay Hall, I like a HELOC on my primary residence as an emergency fund, and wish I’d had that extra money when I got started, simply as reserves.  

I have the reserves to weather defaults and my team knows their portfolio level numbers, so it's just a matter of getting note investors and lenders on board.15 years payments and 50% LTV are the limits we're seeing for each individual method by the way.

If so, I would take 50k and leave 25k there for reserves or needs.

I would say today 40-50% of your income goes towards normal operating expenses. 50% if you want to include replacement reserves which you should.

My main focus these next 6 months is to educate myself and continue to add to my savings for down payment and reserves.

The last month's rent will be spent, then you have $1,000 on reserve to ensure they return the property in good condition.

The company has a points-based system, where members receive a certain amount annually, and they can then bank those points for up to a year and use them to reserve time at various resorts around the world.I have been dragooned into assisting them with defraying timeshare costs by trying to figure out how to rent out the unused points so that they don't go to waste, before I dive into this myself, I wanted to find out if anyone else has experience with vacation rentals with this set-up.

Having contingency plans and sufficient cash reserves is crucial for navigating unforeseen challenges.Please let me know if I am missing any. 

I expanded fast and my reserves for sure suffered temporarily ( was taking some reserves for future downpayments) , but am aggressively building those back up, while growing my personal savings bucket, and do very strigegent tenant background checks and references.