Missing phone calls is not an option because they're so expensive to generate, so bare that in mind when you're setting up your systems & processes.

At that rate, I barely have time to get in to the properties to take care of maintenance and upgrades.  

I've been doing some research, running some numbers and at $800-$900 per month plus repairs plus the ridiculously high property taxes I would barely cashflow as a new out of state investor.  

For these reasons, I personally think it's smart for a person in the feast/famine lifestyle of real estate investing to keep at the bare minimum a one month supply of nonperishable food on hand.

However, the laundromat bares little resemblence to owning real estate.

We have bare soil in the back yard...

It's a different niche but it works and it works very well.I have a 3bedroom/2bath in metro atlanta that was investor owned for 4 years...it barely produced a 2% return over that time and was purchased for cash.

That barely means anything more, but it's at least something...

You also said this is a deal that barely cash flows AND the interest rate is higher (we are assuming).In my experience, it's not hard to find a retail deal, they are everywhere specifically because they aren't great deals.

But at the end of the day there is no history on that particular asset and your results will differ sometimes for the better and sometimes they won't hit the profroma number.Personally I think one of the best numbers out there  IE the 1% rule the 2% rule etc  is the 50% rule... were as in a home that rents at up to say 1200 a month you just calculate 50% of gross rents to your operating cost.. then subtract your mortgage expenses.. that will give you a nice safe number.. if you like the investment based on that your probably going to be happy long term... and if you do better say you hit 40% of gross as an expenses number then your very happy .. where I think folks get unhappy is they try to plug in the bare minimum numbers and that becomes their expectation and rental houses generally do not hit the bare minimums it always seems to cost more.. at least with my large portfolio ( 350 SFR's in 5 states ) that was the case..