For your smaller deals (less than 30 units) using a 10% vacancy/collection loss factor and a 55% expense ratio is a pretty good place to start the analysis (might be a little conservative from a V&C standpoint).

I know a lot of them.. they dont think about the 1% rule  they have been spoiled for the last 10 years on an appreciating Toronto market.. negative cash flow is fine with them.. their decision is based on location and can they allocated a portion of their high income to supplement their out of pocket expenses..Most of them are not so analytical on cash flow analysis like we are

You could analyze the property a few ways but that will only give you a ball park ESTIMATE.1st: You can just run your analysis and add the owner occupied space as additional vacancy.This is a good method because you are "not" collecting income so you are being very conservative in your expense estimate. 2nd: You can run the analysis and calculate the property as if it is rented and you will be receiving rental income.

The other 3 are Cost approach, income analysis approach, and an appraisal. 

This can help give you a better analysis of your returns.What communities are you targeting?

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But it takes a real analysis and not just an easy mantra from the Internet.And, if you have that much equity, maybe you should think about leveraging it to grow your portfolio instead of looking for ways to milk it for spending money.PS.

Can anyone recommend a good tool that has helped them to analyze comps, primarily for flips, but also holds as well?

@David RipplingerThere are several considerations that can go into the analysis of whether you need an LLC or whether a large insurance policy will suffice.

The biggest thing I noticed when doing my deal analysis is that the "rules of thumb" don't really apply in this area. 2% rule, 50% rule, etc.