This covers the renter covers the small repairs, and my insurance covers the disasters.

If I do a real estate tranaaction every year or two it more than covers my costs and gives me access to MLS.

I have to use the entire security deposit to cover lost rent.  

You will never be sorry about doing that.I know you can only do what you can do but don't lose sight of the big picture.

If you are looking for a place to own and have the rents cover the expenses, you may be able to get away with even a little less than 1%.

The reserves that we did have, the former board repeatedly tapped into to cover small expenditures less than $10k which you are not supposed to do, and they did not fund the reserves for future projects (such as painting the community, paving the parking lot, etc.), and we owed over $98k to our reserves when I took over.  

I am a CPA with 30 years of practice.It looks like the previous posts pretty much covered the tax benefits of home ownership:1.

I was hoping to simply cover my costs and have the 110K back to use on my next purchase and renovation.

(Not by using Google maps because they can easily be outdated pictures) There should be some.

Having a payment covered is less risky that paying down a 100k debt by 20k.