In-fact, if you are buying residential (1-4 units) and willing to live in one while you reposition the property, you may be able to manage a down payment as low as 5% (SFH & duplex) or 10% (3 - 4 units) ... whether your new "business" will carry itself at 90 - 95% LTV will depend on where you live and how well you purchased.    

I live in Danville IL and it looks like everything is for sale low prices homes rent ready anywhere from 15 to 30k and of course your older run down houses 3-10k all different types of houses in different conditions.

You are also obliged to have heating in the unit, but that doesn't mean you need to have the gas bill in your name...?

No reason to over complicate what should be a simple low cost deal.

Regardless if they are a Doctor, college student or a low income housing tenant.  

It is one of the best regions to invest in buy-and-hold due to it's low acquisition costs and relatively high rents (large University and housing shortage). 

And when you start looking and low-dollar properties you can have small dollar amounts making a big shift in cash-on-cash returns.Just for easy math (ignore impracticalities): $70K purchase price means $17,500 down.So you need $1,750 in cash-flow to make your 10% goal.If you get $1,500 it's an 8.5% cash-on-cash return.

That seems to be the most fair for the water, but since I think the gas is used not only for heat but also for stoves/ovens, I'm curious to see if anyone has another way of splitting this out.Any thoughts?

I saw that some people had extremely low cost basis on something that was worth a significant amount.

I am currently screening tenants for my rental apartment, a few of them have good credit score (above 700) but their credit history is only 0.5-1 year old.  Can this be a good enough reason to deny their application?