Laurel is kinda mixed, and I believe spans both Howard County and Prince George's (PG) County.

We're hitting up a span between Mechanicsville and English Avenue at the moment and could talk a good bit about those areas.Also, spent most of my life there and went to uni at GaTech (right next to these areas) and visit several times a year.

@Benjamin Cowles, because options exist historically so that an interested buyer can use a span of time to determine when and or if to purchase an asset from a flexible seller - not for someone to lock up a property for a period of time so they can find an actual buyer (unless you say that up front and the seller is willing).TICs are a manner in which title is held in real estate. 

I'm under contract with a park that has mostly new tenants renting park-owned homes with the Option to buy in 10 year time span (10 moved in 2016 and 12 in 2017 which are on 1-year leases), 8 are long time tenants, 6 are vacant homes, and no vacant lots (36 total lots). 

But 3-4% of $125,000 is way more than 8% of $10,000 over a 5 year span with all intentions of selling.

For anyone wondering how I made that much money in the time span of just a few years, essentially it just breaks down to living extremely below my means, and making a few large, high risk/high potential return investments which just so happened to pay off.

 @Matt Steele Yes absolutely you should require that they clean up their area of living.

Where are the major systems (roof, hvac, electrical) at in their life spans and have you budgeted adequately for replacing them?

There is a septic tank and there are leach lines, which span out into a leach field, which is a portion of your property that basically has pipes with holes in it coming from the septic tank for the water, to "leach" into the ground.As nasty as it sounds, it's a pretty cool thing when you think about it.

Suggest you buy properties in "lesser flood prone" cities North of Houston: Tomball, Conroe, The Woodlands, Spring, Cypress, etc, and greatly reduce your span of control.