I will definately disclose us being married in each deal.

@Marcus Auerbach, I think you are right in that us being newbies and not having experience behind us, we have gotten into a bit of deal "analysis paralysis".

@Joel Owens , Thank you for the input, I hope that we will be able to find a good option for a commercial loan.If you don't mind me asking, with us being out of the country, in your opinion what would be our best real estate investment option ?

I'm so glad I'm over the hump of hard-to-get financing. 

Shouldn't be more than about $100k but I'm worried about us being approved for a mortgage given that we're "fresh off the boat".

That should get you over the hump.

Property tax in Portland jumped with all the levy’s and assessments that hit this year (and I don’t think that’ll stop in the future) while the city council wants to blame the homeless situation and housing crunch on landlords and have us be the only ones to foot the bill.

I'm grateful that this property did not flood (had another property that did) as I'm just about over the hump in getting this bad boy refinanced.

Both of us being in our thirties we are looking at the future and long term goals.  

So if they are at 1150, I don't see us being able to raise to 1400.