You need that reserve to be able to weather, or even address, them.How about this...

@JD Martin the for sure barometer of a legit town is weather they have a Chipotle or not.

Yup  you have to factor in one roof as oppossed to maintaining 4 indy properties given weather conditions and age of product. 

Calvin Ball intends to introduce a housing package which will include the following:Rent control at a 6% capExpanding a right to purchase of existing properties to nonprofitsExpanding a payment in lieu of taxes agreement for privately held propertiesRental security deposit and rental assistance for Howard Community College and school system studentsFunding improvements for units for ADA purposesAllocating $1.4M in grants from the Housing Trust Fund for nonprofits for rental assistance, weatherization and other unit improvements Clearly, rent control (item 1) and delaying private transactions (item 2) are incredibly problematic.

DO NOT BUY. your expected costs will be even higher, you've left of closing costs and repairs will certainly be more than 1000 dollars. unless there is another angle this property does not have enough meat on the bones to weather an extended vacancy or large capital requirement (like a roof). if this is the property you want, you'll need a much better price. 

Updated appliances, yes guests on a budget do want to be able to cook and especially if you get snowbirds who descend any time between October and March and stay for weeks at a time, they don't want to eat out a lot during their stay.Xbox and lots of games to keep the children (big and small) amused, there will be times when they are having a day off from the parks, or the weather is bad and parents still need to keep their children entertained without too much effort.  

I do like the area in general (even though I am a Michigan fan)  I do not like our winters and am looking for something where we can go to if we want milder weather. 

When I jumped in I spent a ton of time reading comments like all the ones posted above, listening to podcasts where people continually confirmed how they felt once they finally did it, and forecasting how I was going to feel when it was done. 

You are not concerned with cold weather or rain /flooding in California, but that is a real concern in the midwest.

After scouring the forums and blog posts on BP, I see the same generic answers of, "Look for good economic growth indicators, areas with multiple industry, areas with good price to rent ratios..." but no one really gets down into the details of where to go to find such data or how they use the data to forecast in the future.In fact, I listened to DGs second guest appearance on the BP podcast hoping he would shed some light.