My immediate goal is to acquire our first property and spend the next two years mastering the basics of real estate investment. ( Refining the Go and No property search criteria/ Learning the value of taxes and avoiding them as much as possible/ 1031 exchanges) Depending on my wife’s career orders, we may remain in Baltimore for 1-2 years, but I’m also exploring opportunities in West Texas, Sierra Vista, AZ, and Houston, TX.

Overall, you're spending $25k in extra costs and a monthly pmt that's $500 higher to keep $50k in your bank account. 

Then spend a LOT of time analyzing deals from the MLS in your preferred location.

If they are struggling then money they spend in one area affects their ability to pay other bills like rent.

@Heather Bailey Wow thank you so much for spending your time to help guide me!

You can EASILY pass several million to your heirs tax free and avoid at least a $1M in taxes if you spend anywhere near 20 years investing in real estate. 

But they could just buy the house or condo next door and go to cosco and spend $10k making it nice like my wife does. 

There's a specific forum for House Hacking.You'll want to spend some time reading through there as it's a common topic.

They'll spend a lot of time warning up and getting back into the groove.

Take the money you would be spending on filing and additional costs and put it toward an umbrella policy.