I joined this forum to connect with others, learn from those who’ve been in my shoes, and maybe even find people to partner with in the future.If you’ve got any tips, especially around raising capital or structuring your first deal, I’d love to hear them!

Really your reply is the kind of thing that has made Bigger Pockets so valuable for people like me with more limited access to a broad range of more experienced professionals.

In the “old” days, people would have the seller pay the lender so as to not “alert” the lender that a property sale had taken place, so that the lender def wouldn’t trigger the so called “due on sale” that’s a part of almost every mortgage or deed of trust document.  

I'm also considering Halethorpe because it's a good commuter location.Some people really like supporting the city in which case , northeast Baltimore would seem to the best place to buy a single family, in my opinion given the taxes situation and given that none of those areas are walkable I’d rather just be in the county and pay Lower taxes, and it’s not like northeast Baltimore is much that much cheaper than Baltimore county, hathorpe is mixed, arbutus is nice, I hate the housing stock there, would rather be in Catonsville if I was considering western Baltimore county. 

A lot of people negatively arbitrage their 30-year mortgage, after taxes, if they keep money in a high yield savings account instead of prepaying their mortgage, because the savings account pays 4.25%, and their mortgage rate is 3.75%.

That’s 3 months of mortgage out of pocket and can make Chas flow negative. im also curious if people have experience doing section 8 in b neighborhoods or just c and d 

The biggest issue with Stessa is that it sounded like they had very low transfer maximums(making it difficult to pay people) but it looks like they've improved a little bit on that.

Ultimately it's less of a science than an art, but people rarely truly change so what they did is probably what they'll do.

The credit committee is usually made up of local people who are familiar with the market they are in.

I would also join a bunch of Investor groups via facebook and try to connect with as many people as you can.