Now he’s watching his profit margin turn into an emergency repair bill, and can count himself lucky no one got hurt.Just thought I’d pass this little tidbit along in the hopes it might save a diy’er or aspiring contractor a future headache.

It kind of depends on your needs-- my bank counts the full amount of the HELOC as credit card debt :(  So if you use all of it and/or don't make consistent progress paying it down, your credit score could take a hit.

I would be using FHA financing and living in one unitThe numbers (my best estimate) would be:Rent(current 2 units at 750/month, 1 at 700/month, 1 vacant)=2200Potential rent(fully rented including my unit at 750)=3000PITI=1800 (PMI is making this expensive, this is a rough estimate but should be accurate+/-100)Maintenance=150 (5%)Capex=150 (5% roof was just repaired and 3 units have new heaters)Utilities=400 (best estimate for water sewage and trash seems high to me but would rather be conservative, this is what the last 4plex in the area I analyzed told me)vacancy=300(10% again being conservative saying I will lose about 1 month per year)management=300 (10% I will be selfmanaging at least while I live there but I want it to make sense financially with management)cash flow=$300 (not counting me paying myself rent)In these numbers I am assuming I increase the rent on the one unit that is currently below the others. 

Actually Don I'm a HML and at least by us yes experience counts.

You're already almost at 3 months, so you might be okay depending on the bank.After you establish rental income, you may be able to increase your debt to income ratio by counting the rental income as income.

We will not know that until the Dept of VA interprets the new law and promulgates guidelines/regulations.Your or my interpretation don't count for squat. :) Legislators pass laws, bureaucrats and political appointees interpret them and post regs.

I count our sailboat as insurance too ;) And we're still buying rentals when we can find decent cash-flowing properties.

Maybe you can get the price down or raise rents, but I wouldn't necessarily count on that.

The rent is higher, but the banks or financers wont really count that as income like they would in an apartment building when computing the value of the park.

Not great.I do think that it sounds like your prospective property is a de-facto BRRRR situation -- definitely count on having to rehab units to get that $1000 a month rent.