I do live in my building so my income from the other 2 units in the building go toward my mortgage payment.

But due to the above factors- we're still in a hot and heavy seller's market, with no real relief in sight for buyers (add to that, with the new Burnett / National of Realtors settlement, they will be squeezed even further, having to also potentially shell out their Buyer's agent fees, which, traditionally, have been added into the seller's listing price before listing to provide to the Buyer's agent).

We've been managing our properties for 2 years now and been doing a lot of the work ourselves to save money, such as yard maintenance, cleaning, unit flips, etc.

We are looking to set up one of the 4 units in the building we are buying in DC as a MTR and have some questions.1.

Okay, four examples from the past three months of homes/condos me or clients have purchased that are in zones where vacation rentals are legal:  Unit 1:  2 bed/1 bath purchased for $225k, currently finishing up construction to update and make it a 3/2 bath that will sleep 8-10 people. 

Avoid the national players.

this is somewhat true. depending on the size of the "skeleton". what we found from being in renovations for 8 years and new construction for the last 5 years nationally is that what actually makes the money is design, entitlement, land acquisition, etc. you can pull every lever in new construction. it's more active and you have all the control. if you don't make money it's your own fault. talk to any lender who looks at deals they would agree. banks prefer ground up at the regional level who see deals than existing renovations.

This criteria is for 1-4 and 5-8 unit programs.

These buildings typically have 3 floors with 2 units per floor.

When someone asks you any question, you should be able to answer it with a policy or deal with it using a procedure.Software is less critical when managing a small number of units.