@Jeremy Dolan, We can only speculate on what could of happen.

A court would rarely award speculative damages (short term rental occupancy would fall under this category), so why should you as the landlord?

I have heard people say this strategy is less investing and more speculation.

Like you mentioned - lease option, owc, subject-to, etc ** rent by the room, str, mtrPeople are speculating, if all they are doing is buying and hoping for appreciation.

Buying rentals with a negative cash flow in hopes of future appreciation is SPECULATION.

We are all doing a bunch of speculating here because none of us have all of the details or the contracts.

That is called speculation.

I could definitely look a little bit more into the rent numbers, but personally, it doesn't seem good enough to meAnd buying thinking it is going to appreciate is speculative, and you just have to understand the risks and rewards of that choice.

From an appreciation standpoint NOVA currently wins that battle, but I have high hopes that in the next 5ish years Baltimore will be a completely different city (all speculation of course).Good luck with your decision!

Personally, if I were going to invest in a Hartford SFR, it would be more of a speculative play based off of the limited new construction projects that are being proposed.