I am basing my calculations on the lower number to be conservative.

They are as conservative as they come, yet they won't raise the rent because they feel sorry for the people that are in the units, and one of them (the husband) is bitter now and wants to sell all the rentals because they aren't making any money and costs are getting prohibitive.

I like to use conservative estimations.2.

mortgage all in is $2600 / month and a conservative rental estimate is $3700-$3900.The tricky thing is my wife will move first, and I will follow her about 3 months later. 

Effectively though, since nothing has been approved by the IRS, you'll need to be sure the position you're taking is conservative enough to be able to successfully defend if challenged.

I concede I'm a bit conservative but look in the mirror and tell yourself honestly that you have practically no real estate knowledge and no real estate experience and then ask yourself is that's the footing you want to be on as a basis for totally disrupting your life and risking $250k. 

You can conservatively expect 10% annual returns as a private lender in almost any market across the country which would net you $10k/year or an average of $833/month. 

Not always true but more than likely will be.Those stresses you mention don't stress me, but I underwrite the worst case for everything and keep reserves way more conservative than 99% of folks and definitely BP "investors".

I do run a quick analysis with the additional expenses (cleaning, utilities, etc) and the most conservative monthly MTR rents I can expect just to be safe, but my focus is really on that LTR analysis.

We'd be paying less than we would renting after taking conservative reserves.