+1 Thoughts from above.
If you want to get your feet wet with real estate to see if you like it as an investment vehicle, it's fine for a rental. Try it for two years and if it's not for you, you can still sell and get the capital gains exclusion.
As far as understanding the capex, you'll learn through being a landlord. Things will wear out and break. Part of learning if landlording is for you is seeing if that stresses you out or if you just roll with it. As far as financials, I would recommend that the property have its own checking account and emergency fund to handle the repairs so you're not dipping from your personal accounts to handle maintenance/capex.
Since it's your first property, I would go through all the major capex (HVAC, appliances, roof, hot water, etc) and make a list of all the ones nearing the end of their useful life. Then get some quotes of what it would cost to replace them if they failed. That would be the balance I would want to keep on the property's checking before pulling out profit for myself.