I'm looking to build wealth for the long term. being 22 I my big why is early retirement and being able to travel. my focus is definitely cash flow and any appreciation is icing on the cake. my first instinct Is Columbia md because it does have plenty of jobs with high population (and growing slightly, I think around +1% growth). the cool thing is the owner/renter ratio is 60/30 30% of the housing market being renters. it has great 5 out of 5 star schools and a vacancy rate of 3.9%. now those are pros in my eyes. some cons are the houses are old the average being built in 1979. they are also a little on the expensive side. a good deal to even consider would be 200k. also high hoa fees.Now is this an opportunity market, do the pros out weight the cons? 

The tax savings are just icing on the cake, not the cake. 

It is a piece of cake.

This means that you can have the cake and eat it too.

Buy for cashflow the appreciation is just icing on the cake.

I'm sure this would be a piece of cake for a CPA, to answer but should I hire a CPA if I only had one property for about two weeks in 2016?

For a traditional situation where that is obviously not possible, I think you have to always figure high on your pro forma and then anything you achieve below that vacancy rate is icing on the cake.  

If they appreciate, well that will be the "icing on the cake", an added plus.

The icing on the cake would be if the office had a lot of property investing activities.  

Depreciation is an icing on a cake type thing and certainly, wouldnt be worth banking on having.