I live in Vienna VA and am concentrating on Baltimore City for investing in rehabbed row houses.best regards,jeff

I have decided to stop my big expansion plans and concentrate on fixing properties up during the down time. 

Why not concentrate on purchasing a three or four-plex as your first property?

That usually requires the owner to apply for a zoning change.For that process, you'll need some engineering accomplished, site plan, water retention, concentration of land usage, utility plans, street plans, etc.How many acres are there?

In the future perhaps you should concentrate on newer  properties that need less rehab.  

There is little doubt in my mind that sometime in the future they (Congress, not Obama, as he'll be out of office by then) will make a concentrated push to "get back" some (if not all) of all their "lost" tax revenue when they start wondering how to fill the massive holes in our budget, while looking at this big huge juicy pile of promised tax free money just sitting there.I hope I'm wrong, and you just hit a home-run with your apartment purchase!

If your capital is depleting, don't wait until its gone to act.If your buyers list is becoming short, build it up before its its too late.If your concentrated buying area is becoming saturated, work on finding a new one!

We have extremely high credit scores, mid-800's and have used the same lender for the last 7 transactions and they cannot bend.There are a few options I can think of: A co-signer, a credit union, family/friends lending you the money until you have the two years of tax returns.If none of this is an option, I think you should concentrate on raising your credit score while you wait the two years.

What I will do is send out mailers to these lists with a concentration on absentee owners as well.

The risks are very low for single family dwellings, apartments are a different animal due to the higher concentration of tenants.