Our 120-day rehab period ended in Dec 2017 and ABC Baltimore told us that the house was “very close” to being done.

Have a long-term hold period(north of 10 years), enter when the market is telling you.

Over the summer I used a VA loan to purchase a 3br/1b per unit duplex that I'm currently house-hacking, doing a live-in remodel on the second floor with the first floor totally updated and occupied with college students.

A preforeclosure period of 120 days is required before a lender can enter foreclosure for lack of payment. 

Painting walls, updating fixtures, or handling minor repairs yourself can save thousands upfront.Consider Your Exit Strategy: You’ve got the right idea;house hack for 1-2 years, then convert the property into a long-term rental.

Meanwhile during the eviction period, we finalized our architectural plans and started the permitting process in the county so we didn't lose much time.

Even link the 2 together to automatically update the calendars.

When sdat and city taxes updates there will be no question though that could take months.A lot of the better pms void this by only managing in the better parts of Baltimore city or the suburbs. 

However, I'm guessing the reason you're saying you need to wait 4 months is because of a required seasoning period?

I got good at estimating renovation costs by making an initial estimate based on photos/walkthrough, drawing up a model like you see here, then once the project is finished, go to accounting, get the actual expense report for that property, and update the model.