@Vidit Maini Until you are an ESTABLISHED business I would recommend just keeping track of your mileage for deduction as opposed to spending the extra money to buy a “company vehicle”.

While it will likely give you more confidence and answer a lot of questions, I would say that talking to a seasoned investor, or even agent that works with investors, is a way better idea than spending 8K on something that you don't know too much about, especially before your first deal is done.

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. 

@Wells H. you can spend DAYS driving through Detroit!

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. 

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

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.