Vacation/AirBnB home Baltimore City

[Alice Jou]

Hi, 

I'm in downtown Washington, DC and am looking to invest in a second home in Baltimore City - used as a weekend family house (we have 2 small kids, under 3) and to rent out on AirBnb occasionally. We would like to stick to near Penn Station/Amtrak, or close to the hipster/yuppier parts of town, Fells Point/Federal Hill, or by Camden Yards. Budget is about $200k, for a 2 or 3 BR house - and open to doing some small DIY projects on our own or paying for bigger projects, like going lead paint free. 

We would be paying mostly or all cash, so we're not too constrained by cash flow. Our main criteria is being able to get back our cash (after taxes, maintenance, etc) in about 3-5 years if needed. Obviously, we know Baltimore is block by block, so we'd be visiting a lot - and we love the city, so that's not a problem.

The reason for doing this is that we have saved enough cash for a down payment in the DC suburbs - which is enough to buy an entire nice house in Baltimore. We had planned on moving to the suburbs when we had kids, but it turns out we're not feeling cramped yet in our condo, and DC has public preschool. We need to stay in DC for our jobs. So we'd like to stay and build some more equity in our condo for at least 3-5 more years. In the meantime, I'd like to keep our down payment cash parked somewhere other than the bank, but safer than the stock market,.

Any thoughts? Also, would love to network with any Baltimore City real estate investors.