Thank you in advance and I look forward to connecting with you :) I’d at least consider taking that 40k and putting 10% and house hacking in pg county, Bowie, Fort Washington and even some parts of temple hills can be pretty nice (if boring) and some what affordable at least compared to the rest of the dmv, not obviously it’s not gonna have the nightlife of Arlington which depending on your situation could be a draw back.

PG county is 20% Baltimore city is 12-18%, most others are 12%. 

PG County, Bmore city (not county), montgomery county has some of the highest property tax.

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to reach out to the county auditor for any permits.The vent is just a 14' x 6' inch slotted vent.

All aspects of a property (tenant, owner, property) are integrated well with easy to navigate transitions between each.Frills between systems that save a TON of time at scale include text to confirm, showing slots, guest cards (synced inbound marketing) and of course... online applications.If you plan on having more than 10 units... pay for the software and so you can start filling out your whole mental utility belt sooner.

As far as rates, keep in mind cash out refi rates are always more expensive than purchase so even if rates drop you wouldn’t necessarily get a better rate and tbh it’s my personal opinion that rates are likely to remain in mid 6’s or so for the next few years, As far as appreciation with rates dropping, I’ll be honest I thought going from 8 to 6.5 would be a bigger impact than we’ve seen and while it’s stillpossible we see that come spring I do think some markets are just too expensive and are likely to go nowhere for a while, I think the areas with the best appreciation over the next few years and this is just my personal opinion, under 400k in prime Baltimore location’s, under 500k single family in Howard, PG and Anne Arundal county and under 400k single family on the eastern shore, the reason being those are still area’s that are around par if not cheaper than rent that are also nice places for a family to live, while most normal home buyers aren’t necessarily looking at price to rent ratio it certainly factors in subconsciously and I believe though I could certainly be wrong any growth from here on out is going to be driven by 1st time buyers looking for single family homes that are affordable to them relative to the rest of the metro area.

Right now if I were going to house hack all things being equal, & depending on price point I’d look southern pg county, Fort Washington, temple hills etc.

I grew up in Columbia and have house hacked in both PG county and Baltimore, and it worked well in both locations.

For little towns right now, there are a few permit slots in Nehalem and Seaside for the moment. 

However, in several of the remaining towns in the area, there are permit slots available or licenses outright transfer for existing rentals, but not many and highly specific to each property.