In all seriousness, unless this is a Class C/D property, buying a very small, very cheap, used fridge from craigslist is pretty insulting to your tenant and reflects how you expect them to take care of the property.

As far as any suggestion that my posts are suspect, or lacking transparency, I'm in the business of cold-calling, it's what I do, it's what I know about, it's what I'm passionate about and frankly, it's the reason I began this blog strand in the first place; naturally the subject matter is going to reflect my personal experience.

Thank you. your reflections are a big help.

So, it is more a reflection rather than a hard number or percentage anyone can give to you.Happy to discuss any of this more in depth if you ever wanted; otherwise good luck on your new endeavors.

We actually got the state law to reflect that.

Our house has significant equity, and I want to ensure that we are taking all of that into account.Does anyone have any recommendations on calculators or what numbers to plug into the standard calculators to get an accurate reflection?

When doing some rather intricate research on individuals who HAVE partially quantified success (to a cheerleader degree, that is, never with bottom line figures) further research exposes that they ALREADY HAD much money to invest in property acquisition and the would not be bruised by the cost of these educations for which one does not receive a license or even certification much less a degree but for which they cannot even GET a student loan as Renatus is not reflective of an educational institution for which one can apply for grant or loan.

Finally - this is not a bash on Detroit or a reflection of you as an individual. 

Overall I would say 10% is good just because it is such an extreme that it's a good ceiling value to use on a property, and it's nice because on the flip side many properties won't really be needing repairs or small maintenance that often so you could still run that and then have a nice budget put away to deal with those things so it's like you have just given yourself free money in some sense after you have dealt with minor issues by taking from such a large reserve.Ultimately what makes numbers 'good' is very subjective but you should budget and plan for what you're comfortable with, even when you're house hacking your vacancy may not be 4% just because you are renting out half the place, it may well be 8% heck it could be 16% but you should try to plan to get an average that is reflective of the year in a bad year just to be very safe.

Ultimately, the decision should reflect a balance between the desire for control and the recognition of the benefits that professional expertise can bring to long-term financial success.If nothing else, run a calculation of the amount of fees you will pay.