At this point my only hope is to run the apartment as a mid-term, which I think is a viable strategy here; so I have furnished it (more $) and made it pretty.

@Brian Burke Both of these properties have management issues, starting out 18 months ago occupancy was in mid 80's at takeover, but the economic vacancy was high a lot of delinquency, courts backed up and they couldn't evict fast enough, meanwhile they did most of the Capex but weren't able to fill all the upgraded units quickly, they changed management companies and things were getting better but not fast enough, and yes it has bridge debt with no rate cap, and the amount of the capital is to be able and hold on till they hit 90% occupancy and will be able to refinance.Lessons I'm learning, Due diligence is walking every unit, looking at every lease and checking if money from leases are actually going into the bank.

Is anyone running mid-term rentals in that area? 

We are wanting to buy a property (or 2) to start doing short term or mid term rentals. 

Are you looking for long-term or short-term/mid-term?

Echo @Dave Meyer, if you aren't planning on living there but getting a primary loan, that is mortgage fraud.Why not just house hack in California, live there a few months out of the year, and then do mid-term rental for the rest?

My husband and I are rookie landlords in the Alexandria, VA area trying to navigate the mid-term rental market.

In addition, the deals will be based on long-term rental outlook, but we are going to see how a mid-term rental strategy pans out for the higher cash flow in the short term.

You can certainly withdraw your offer - even if they signed it and you did not.It really isn't necessary to provide your potential mid-term tenant an explanation for your actions.  

By state law we had to do a lot of asbestos testing, and I ended up getting asbestos training.I was told that some drywall as late as mid 1980s had asbestos, so we took numerous random samples, but found none.