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. 

Of course, managing your own properties is a good thing (instead of having to spend the money on a manager), but you have to manage your property in a professional manner.

pack your trips with showings and meetings.if it's not worth it to you to spend some time and money doing that... then don't spend tens of thousands of dollars on a property.

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.

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.

My goal of refinancing was simply lowering our monthly spending to reallocate towards future investments.

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

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

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