You have enough to buy multiple rent properties. 

An escrow account is nothing special, just a checking or savings account where you put nothing but security deposits and advanced rent.

Me and my partner moved from Utah to Maryland for school recently and we have a townhouse that we are looking to rent. we are currently remodeling and changing a few things before renting. what are the first steps to change my primary to a rental I lived there for about two years.

You could look for properties that are already getting solid rents in one of the units. 

market rents/cost to aquire What was the outcome?

We own two homes here in TN and are getting ready to rent them out.

I would keep it at "reasonable market rent" (whatever that means).

Maybe it's property location.

So your super basic P&L may look like: $30,000 Rents-$3,000 insurance expense -$9,000 interest-$3,000 taxes-$8,000 operating expenses-$14,000 depreciation ----------------$7,000 loss on paper for the year  so negative taxable income But remember- $14k of that (depreciation) was something we didn't actually spend money on- so cash in bank at year end would be $7,000. 

Live under your means and start thinking about investing in Real Estate.In your position the thought of finding a duplex to house hack, live in one side and rent the other.