It's a decision you have to make.Lenders will require a certain amount of reserves on a loan that you may feel adequate or not enough for your personal comfort level.The choice to plow additional cash into purchasing properties rather than holding for excess reserves is your decision based on interest rates, what cycle the market is in, etc.If great deals abound then for me I want to try to get as many as possible while in the initial cycle recovery.

Sounds like the property had problems when you bought it and you don't have enough money in reserves and you don't have enough experience yet to effectively handle this.Here is my advice:1.

Keep in mind you will need to budget reserves and furnishing the unit.

If a tenant pays late is fine if you have reserves and they make it CONSISTENTLY.

(Should be favorable cashflow after all is said and done, including mgmt. co, reserves for repairs, etc).My question is this:  I'm interested in putting the property under an LLC for income passthrough, expense protection liability protection and all the other reasons one would do this. 

@Jacob D Cockerell - speaking as Broker for Hard Money Lenders you can expect the following for a new investor:1.  30% Down payment + Closing Cost and Reserves (3 to 6 months of the monthly loan payment)2. 

Do you have your own cash reserves?

At those low rates I prefer to keep my cash in reserve and employ it elsewhere. 

You will also need six months reserve equaling the mortgage payments in a bank account or other type of account.

My vacancy is never that high on a stabilized property, but the reserves are there and there is that meat on the bone because of my rents.Yeah, vacancy is a profit killer, but so are stagnant rents with inflationary costs.