Where another issue arrises is I recently quit my job after becoming pregnant as they would not cover my maternity while overseas, my husband is employed however he works for a UK company and is British so would be unlikely to help us with the situation in the US.

We're starting to see more HELOCs and 2nd mortgages on investment properties nowadays.We deal with pretty much only real estate, investors and self-employed borrowers.send me a direct message and I'll get you a little bit more information.

For house flipping, consider an LLC taxed as an S-Corp to reduce self-employment taxes by taking a reasonable salary and the rest as distributions.

@Jerry Chilimidos, I see that you are self-employed.

Alternatively the other side of the city (Pikesville, Towson outskirts) still decent rentals but they are farther from employment centers.

Non-QM I can do things like bank statement, self-employed, ITIN, Jumbo, blah blah blah.

I have a pretty large emergency fund in place for those properties, but I wonder if that capital could be better employed elsewhere (potentially acquire another property).  

When evaluating markets for rental properties, there are a lot of factors to consider: population growth, employment rates, rent to price ratio/GRM/Cap Rate, rent trends, vacancy rates, etc. 

Quote from @Anthony Sigala: Is there any way to get around the 1 year employment history requirement for FHA loans?

Employment Rate: Italy has historically had one of the lowest employment rates in Europe.