@Paul Roman There is no magic wand to make an extra $200/mo appear.  

When you get a bid, don't necessarily hire the person who tells you everything you want to hear, hire the one who speaks the truth.    

With this being our primary residence and with all the other factors mentioned above, would you say it is ok to pay the extra $10,000 and not complete all of the finishes we would like to put in the home since some of them would only be cosmetic.

*combined with theirs an extra building lot would be created *Our house..which is an antique cape completely rebuilt after a fire.* It would make their land into a more cohesive piece.The access that they currently have is challenging..it would cost a great deal to get water and electric that far ( if they even want to do that).

I even have an extra ticket.

An extra $85/mo was scheduled to come out of my pocket (and out of my cashflow!).

After the purchase last year, I do not have extra cash laying around so lately I have been researching lenders and ways to access funding.

And the best kicker is that the owner is willing to finance it with 15% down and 6% interest, which is better than any bank.So, I'll go ahead and use the formula mentioned to see what the worst case scenario would be:$800/mo x 10 homes = $96,000/year-50% Vacancy and or expenses = $48,000/year-$1900/month mortgage = $23,000/year-$250/month water = $3000/year-$110/month trash = $1320/year-$1943/year property taxes per-$1800/year insurance-----------------------------------+$96,000 Income-$48,000 vacancy/repairs-$23,000 mortgage-$3,000 water-$1320 trash-$1943 property taxes-$1800 insurance-----------------$16,937 Net Operating Income @ 50% expense/vacancyWe would have an extra $19,200 if we can keep it at 30% which we're hoping/expecting to be at on the second year after doing some improvements and getting everything rentedWe also believe this can make us look good with the bank for owning property and having cashflow to be able to get another bigger loan in the future.

What do you charge for extra deposit and pet rent?

Lowest balance card gets all the extra cash you can muster to throw at it.