i agree with you on the tough environment there for purchasing / house hacking but I wouldn't give up on that regardless of what else you look into. house hacking = owning real estatewildly successful arbitrage = not owning any real estatecan you look in Frederick MD or Fredericksburg or Ashburn or an exurb? 

WikipediaPro-business environment: Companies are reluctant to set up operations in cities with burdensome regulations that hinder profitable operations.

You pay off the 135k loan and take back your 14k plus closing and holding costs - 20k and you are left with about 6k that is cash in your pocket.So now you are +6k, and you have a renter in there paying your mortgage and putting a couple hundred per month in your pocket and you used 0 of the 150k to do it, or I should say you left 0 in the project.You wanna create a funnel, an environment where you can get 3x - 5x of these done every year, and if you holding look for the 2 - 4s buildings. 

New to this local market, I wonder whether buy and hold is a good strategies for this market (balanced between cash flow and appreciation for class A or B, I know cash flow is difficulty in general given today's real estate environment )?

After the banking failures early last year and the current razor's edge of the banking environment, you had better believe that regulators and banks are hyper sensitive to any potentially bad assets.

The environment problems seem to be much worse in Tulum.

But I can't help but think that I could benefit from the occasional discussion about real estate strategies or bounce opportunities off one another.Coach Carson's RPM program details below:Cost: ~$2500/yearBenefits (form Website):Personalized Coaching: Members receive direct support and feedback from Coach Carson and selected coaches, including monthly group coaching sessions, one-on-one "hot seat" calls, and small group coaching within Action Teams.Action Teams: These are accountability groups of 8-10 members that meet weekly over a three-month period to set and achieve goals, fostering perseverance and resilience among participants.Comprehensive Resources: Members have access to a repository of documents, systems, checklists, and more in the community swipe file, including tenant screening criteria, due diligence checklists, and rental analysis spreadsheets.Exclusive Community: RPM offers a private community of like-minded investors who prioritize time and freedom over scaling rapidly, providing a supportive environment for shared learning and growth.The Group Targets:Investors with experience owning 1 to 8+ properties, whether short-term (e.g., Airbnb), mid-term, or long-term rentals.Individuals who are coachable, hardworking, and value time and freedom over aggressive scaling.

I think it would be a good experience for me to get landlord experience in a mostly controlled environment aka I live there. 

Hopefully that would be the case because a lot of syndications are not doing well due to the high interest rate environment.

Also, having price increases because of the demand is much healthier than having prices go up as a result of low (and manipulated) interest rates like in the US or Canada (although this is changing).