Of the ones that want an appointment, I schedule one time slot a week.

I would set the days and time slots I am available and the applicants would sign up.

It used up one of my 10 slots.  

Would it be more advisable to look for deals inside DC where there asking prices are typically 500k+ on relatively small apartments or to look into PG county and purchase a newly built home that's metro accessible and costs 300-400k?

@Traver Freeman  then what I would do is forget buying one rental out of state.. you should be looking for a 4 plex were you live.. 3.5 % down FHA even a 800k property is only 30k down.. you live in one unit. the other will most likely cover your nut.. you refi out in one year then do it all over again until you have 16 doors all in SOCAL then you will be truly home free... your right 200 a month cash flow if you cannot get scale is a slow bleed many times. you must be careful with your credit. and our loan slots...

Also you talk about the Buffet indicator and reference a chart at the top of pg. 41."

What is sometimes harder is the reserve requirements that increase as you add properties in your name - especially when you split properties and income between yourself and your wife to have more Fannie Mae loan slots available.  

I'm not sure eotr has that much upside left as compared to Prince George's or Montgomery county, outside of Historic Anacostia most of the areas eotr are very suburban and not that walkable so its hard for me to see them going much higher at least compared to other cheap walkable areas in Pg or moco.

BTW, they count my house in Japan as one of my conventional slots even though it's a Japanese bank loan. 

last recession My wife worked on a transaction were a very solid Dentist decided to be a flipper.. got caught in that market of course had PG's and his were worth something.