When I look at potential expenses for a new property, I budget 200/month for insurance, and if it's less then that's just gravy.

Our combined income is mediocre to say the least (85k/year, soon to be 95 - 100k) and have one car payment (300/m) and some cc debt (10k).We felt that we had a a unique situation on our hands because of the equity we have on our home, so we decided to do some researching in Real Estate investing and came to the conclusion of doing a HELOC and investing in SFH in Lancaster or Palmdale, CA.Chase, our lender only approved us for 40k with the condition to pay off our debt and car loan which only leaves us with around 6k.We are thinking about Lancaster and Palmdale because there are some properties that will fits our budget and fall within the 1 - 2% rule.Any advice?

One way we stretch our existing budgets is to get attic exemptions. 

I've been budgeting 20% down, 5% for closing costs.  

The eventual rehab went way over budget and took a lot longer than I planned.  

I stay within budget for standard building, but can feel good about what I'm doing.

I am on a limited budget but have the basics.

I threw you numbers into my modelling tool with the following changes:I used the ask price: 180Kmaintenance - 10%vacancy allowance - 10%Insurance - 1K/yr {rather be too high than too low}lawncare/snow removal - $75/mth,  $900/yrHydro (House) - $100/mth, $1200/yrWater/sewer - $85/mth, 1020/yrGarbage - $85/mth, 1020/yrMortgage: an LTV of 75 and 6.0% interest rate with a 30yr amortization.an opportunity cost of capital at 8% a 15 year hold period.Did not count laundry revenueThis brings your OE to ~1025/mth,  ~12,300/yr  ... an operating ratio of ~43% ... which strikes me as low, but wonderful if true.Just to be pessimistic, I added in another 2000/year of misc expenses to bring your operating ration to 50%With all of the above in the mix, I get a debt coverage of ~1.4 and a CoC of 10.5%  Which is passible.If you could purchase for 165 to 175K and the real expenses are closer to $12-13K/year, then this is will be a good investment with the following caveats:- I did not budget for upfront capital improvements that you would need to do at purchase;- Since I know neither the market nor the property, I modelled with no property value appreciation and no rent improvement.

This is coming from a person who successfuly manages a $100+ million annual operating budget, so please take heed to my advice.God Bless You!

I'm on a limited budget so I was thinking mailing to those 50 or so & that would fit my budget and cold calling the rest as well as leaving door notes saying I wanna buy their house.