Especially since you will be out 18 months for the new construction homes, so market will be hard to predict in CT. 

@amy webberIMO, you can plan for as many capex exenditures, repairs and unexpected disasters such as a basement flooding or an increase in taxes, but because not everything is completely predictable, you may run out of funds quickly or take a loss on the property for years due to the fact that your capex calculations were off.  

So you have these folks with 760 FICO scores who are perfectly happy to ignore the orders of a judge, or who are perpetually unable to pay their entirely predictable income taxes year after year after year & have to continually make payment arrangements because their payment is always late. 

I'm currently looking for small multi-family (2-4 units) properties in suburbs of larger metro cities where I can still achieve >=1% rule.Next 5 yearsA lot of financial market commentators predict recession in 2020.

They have been predicting doom for that last 15 years. 

For long term holds I would say a home equity loan is your best bet as a fixed rate and term can usually be obtained providing peace of mind and allowing you to predict your future expenses more accurately.

In real estate- you want Predictable cash flow and that is coming from your client (tenant).Investing in single family (sf) is ok- but I've found it hard to generate enough passive income to achieve what you're describing. 

@Matt Carozza To answer your specific questions: You should be able to pull out 75% of the equity if you own it in your personal namesIt's nearly impossible to predict rehab costs by the square foot, but based on what I'm doing in the area, if you do need a full gut like mentioned, I'd count on at least $125,000 for a house that large that is that oldFind a mortgage calculator and plug in your numbers.

@Jessica Yau The net lease market is seeing extremely high demand for assets with long-term, NNN leases due to the predictability of cash flow and lack of maintenance with the property.

“We predicted at the beginning of the year, this was going to be the best year for commercial real estate in the past 10 years, and at the midpoint of the year we’re happy to say that’s true and it has been very improved.”Amos attributes the improvement to a pair of factors.