Baltimore area investing

[Samuel Mallery]

Hey there!

New to BP and to Real Estate investing but was looking to move into Baltimore, MD and start my journey with a house hack.

My plan is to move once my lease is up at the start of 2021 and buy a single family home and rent out the remaining rooms.

My long term goal is to get into section 8 housing to help others (primary goal) while still getting a good return (benefit of primary goal), but that's or much later down the road since I still need my first property!

I was looking for some insight into the general Baltimore market, I'm since I will be living in the house I was targeting more recent college graduate neighborhoods such as federal hill or canton.

After doing some more research on the area I have found some information saying how the population growth of Baltimore is negative while the state is positive, and the population is the lowest it's been in about a century. This along with low rents ~2100-200 for a 3bd 3ba, makes me a little hesitant to invest here.

Even if I didn't invest I think I would still move since the rents are cheap. But I really would like to purchase a property and start building equity.

My main reason for posting is to create a paper trail of "hey I'm actually starting this", but I also wanted to see if I could connect with any other investors in the Baltimore area and talk more about the market and what to be aware of (especially since a majority of these homes were built in 1880-1900)

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to being more involved in both the BP and Baltimore community in the future!