Go to zillow and sort by lowest prices in your market.

Drilling/nailing/screwing to or through the asbestos will definitely disturb it at best and break off chunks at worst. 

Our home prices in comparison to salary is near the worst in the nation (at least the Bay area has high salaries). 

I had the absolute worst PM ever, so now I am managing on my own.

My worst appreciating property has appreciated ~$2.6k/month.  

Uses that also target the business incubator residents/visitors and remote workers might work, e.g. many years ago I'd thought about doing a sort of subscription-based co-working space - something of that sort may do well initially, but may be much more successful in about 5 years as the area continues to redevelop.Current resident population within 1/2-mile is lower-income.

I'm trying to figure out if I can get some sort of rider from the company to include them but otherwise it leaves me very vulnerable if someone brings in an ESA. 

Maybe you have a couple losers where you lose 10-20% of your principal, which even in the worst case of two 20% losers that’s 40% of 5% which is 2%.

Rents are pretty high in Baltimore ($1500- $1700 for this sort of home).

I'm open to living in a pretty small space, but would hope to avoid the worst parts of town to start our journey.