Good morning everyone, I was wondering if there were any local real estate investors in the DC, Maryland , Virginia area that I could possibly plug in with as I do my own research? There's nothing like learning first ...

I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia and my wife and I have been looking at buying our first income property for about a year now.  

Investment question: based on your expertise of NOVA area, what is a good way to start investing in this area?

See you tonight at the NOVA opening party!

He is a mortgage broker in Nova. 

This is a high COL area though (DC/NoVA), so trying to get a rough sense of how much negative cashflow I'd have when I leave.Vacancies, prop management, insurance, etc are all pretty easy to estimate, but I have no idea how to properly estimate capex.For example, let's take a theoretical older property:PITI:  $400k condo @ 5.75% interest rate, 20% down

Seems like once you factor in vacancy costs (albeit you may not be running a high vacancy rate in NOVA), maintenance, any turnover costs, liability (holding this in an LLC, management company, etc.., those also have some level of fees to maintain), and management (even if you're self managing, do you want to be making a return on your time?). 

In reality, no one knows (and I certainly don't), but the data doesn't point to any looming crashes.Here's a great snapshot comparing the market today to the last bubble:Comparing the Last Denver Bubble to Today2002-20062012-2016Homes for Sale at EOY (End of Year)5 year average of 22,2585 year average of 5,726Average Months of Inventory6.1 months1.8 monthsNew Homes BuiltTotal of all 5 years 93,000Total of all 5 years 30,000Cumulate Job Growth85,892180,708Net Migration to Denver24,000190,000Homes Built : Migration3.9 homes / 1 person0.2 homes / 1 personResultBubble + correction due to too much inventory and loose lendingScarce inventory drives price increasesData Source: Lonie Glessner at NOVA Home Loans

@Josh Stoddard I am not in NOVA (I am outside of Richmond, VA), but I just wanted to say that I love that you are putting yourself out there to help others while also learning for yourself.

I attended this meetup last night in Tyson's and was disappointed to find out it was a 2+ hour video pitch for Phil Grove's training program. I have nothing against the presenter or the training program (I'm sure it's...