I happened to stumble across a buyer than needed owner financing who was willing to pay $10,000 more than his strike price so I gave him the $5,000 he wanted to vacate his option and pocketed the extra $5,000 on the increased sales price myself. 

The extra funds go as surplus to other lien holders or to the previous owner. 

Any "extra" at the end of the month went towards paying off my credit card (stopped using my cc a couple months ago to keep it from getting any higher), so my checking account pretty much stayed roughly around the same amount for years now (a laughable amount under 10K).

But you'd better have a killer good deal to cover all the extra costs.

So, 3 bookings a month would be an extra $450 to $510 in your expense lineMy advice would be to get actual numbers for whatever property you are looking at and then run the numbers again.

Keep an extra box of tiles in case one cracks or is chipped.

Thanks for putting extra eyes on this!

(hint, it's all about future values, both rent wise and appreciation wise.)That's why the market is so competitive in LA for 2-4's...The future value of a property or rent will not rescue you from a foreclosure if the present rental income is insufficient to cover the present mortgage and expenses and you do not have sufficient extra funds to cater to the deficiency. 

And even though they have the same square footage, missing that extra bedroom is a big deal.

I'll take $100,000 in appreciation 10 years from now that I will be able to 1031 my way out of paying taxes on (or just cash-out refi) over cashflowing an extra $200/month with little-to-no appreciation on a 2%-rule property in Cleveland.