@Grace Green based on your criteria there are many neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and the surrounding boroughs that meet your criteria. here are some questions for you to help target in on a few areas. 1.

Is it an area surrounded by bad schools?

It is surrounded by a wide variety of employers, private, public, and military, and is reasonably commutable to DC and Annapolis, MD.

Madison appears to be driving this surge, compared with the surrounding area driving the previous surge.I wouldn't get too excited just yet though.

You might want to familiarize yourself with the price points for different property types in DC and the surrounding areas, so you have a better sense of current market prices  You can also take a look at this article on market demand for housing in DC.https://wtop.com/business-finance/2020/07/dc-housing-market-very-brisk-but-may-slow-soon/Once you have a better sense of price points and the different property types in the DMV area, you'll have a better sense of what makes the most sense for your investment goals and how much time you'll need to get your funding together. 

Tons of blue states moving in SA and surrounding areas.

Any deal or potential deal can be vetted by quickly researching surround areas past sals history.

They just announced a new plan to bring affordable housing and improve flood/drainage issues in the surrounding area.

I should mention that we ended up creating an addendum that the seller would reimburse me after closing for any additional funding he received above and beyond the 43K we discussed.The numbers: Purchase price: 43K -- Loan Amount: 60KOut of Pocket Cost: 1K Earnest Money -- $725 inspections (well/septic/water/home) -- $18,320.64 down at closing -- $125 in repairs (still need to replace a shower surround at some point)Money back into my pocket following closing 15,640.65Total out of pocket cost: $4529.99 (with 14K in equity on day 1!)

There are surrounding similar homes in the same street but were sold 5-10 years back.