FHA vs Conventional will largely come down to your credit score, downpayment, use, income/DTI, and future plans.

Just wanted to add the MidAtlantic Summit convention @Dave Van Horn and his team hosted last year was top notch with the next one planned for October 2019. 

Because many have been burned over the past few years investing with sponsors who had little to no experience and investors were caught by the glamourous and sexy returns that were being promised that they were getting four years ago but are now gone from big returns to big losses.So the first question you are gonna have to answer is how do you plan on protecting investors money?

Planning to ask PM to ask her contractor about partial paint-job and also have an independent painter go in and see whether they feel a partial paint job or full would be necessary. 

Although I'm confident I can fix and flip it, my plan is to keep it as a rental.My dilemma is... where do I get the rehab funds? 

Any property you get into, though, you should plan to have a good capital reserve account to address the problems that will inevitably come up.If you're looking for properties that have stronger cashflow, I would look toward the South East of the USA. 

I do plan on building up the savings as much as I can before that time comes as I don’t want to be ill prepared for unplanned events as you mentioned.

I'm curious if there are any future plans for this neighborhood beyond developments like the Gravities, Bottoms Up, and other breweries.

Quote from @Eric Mcginn: Long time BRRRer here, planning on leaving my W2 soon to pursue flips (and raise my babies)   Ive read the BP book on flipping.

Not at all-Just deliver what he took money for -Plans for an efficient functioning of the building.