Then you can read a more in-depth book like The Book On Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner or The Unofficial Guide to Real Estate Investing by Spencer Strauss.2.

I like Dundalk because of it's location (easy to get south and 20 minutes away from shopping areas.Any advice on this area?

Going to try out PayRange, the Shine Pay is slightly more expensive and the one quote about the 20 units appears to be from shinepay as it is the only qoute they ever made... not sure which is better but both look like good options

The title search would likely happen simultaneously to your own due diligence and the lender's due diligence so it wouldn't really be separate steps.

We would like to refinance as soon as possible after the build to recover all or most of our initial investment.

That is like walking into the store to buy juice that is for sale for $5 and paying them $7 for it because you want to pay more than what the juice is worth.

Instead of jumping into an expensive Long Island market with negative cash flow, consider investing in a Texas market like San Antonio, Houston, or DFW suburbs—these areas offer strong rental demand, lower property taxes than NY, and better cash flow potential.

In the meantime, I'd like to get my Texas Real Estate License, but would like to know if I could do a few deals remotely before return back stateside to Texas, and can come into the office. 

Sometimes new investors try and look in 5 markets at once which is like drinking from a fire hydrant and results in nothing happening because they get overwhelmed.

These two contractors may not like that area, or just had one bad experience, so it would be great if you could explore more of what other experiences people had/have in the city.