If I had to make a grand proclamation, I like to have at least enough cash on hand to weather a catastrophe and avoid losing my assets, wherein I had expenses and no income for a significant amount of time.

Then you can always raise the price of the rent to the point that they leave on their own, or add a non refundable pet deposit for a couple grand to cover the damages from their dogs when they do leave.

(I mean that in a friendly way... you will be back, and need to feel welcome to come back after you've learned your lesson and wasted a few grand on inspections and appraisals for loans you couldn't ever actually get from that lender. 

New to Grand Rapids mi...

Explain what you can do to help them KEEP their house...or buy their house and give them an extra ten grand after the bank is paid off.

He can show you how to buy slums for ten grand in the hood and sell them as beautiful turnkey 50k homes to unsuspecting out of state investors !

5% is 5% but it is still relatively cheap money in the grand scheme of things.  

Stamford express train is 52 minutes by itself to Grand Central...so factor in time to the station and time from GCS to where ever you need to go would probably be 1 hour 20 minutes.  

There is also a large group in Ann Arbor and one in the Grand Rapids area.

@Ben Leybovich  seems like a few grand would be appropriate if your going to take phone calls at all.