Add to this the uniquely corrupt bureaucratic environment of Baltimore City, Maryland (where I grew up)--and its creaky, barely functioning housing-voucher machinery. 

That is not your problem their buddies changed their mind and these two need more time than the others to move.Do NOT agree to take the extra week out of the SD. 

Mind you I have bought and seasoned and cash out refi many times houses and condos that  I bought from tax auction. 

Certainly the one in the store will cost more, but most people would gladly pay extra for the value of peace of mind."

I did a quick search, and found some people who said they had borrowed against their TSP for real estate investing purposes, but I was wondering if I could pool the hive mind for some more details on the process.When borrowing from the TSP do you arrange it through the TSP or is it a 3rd party lender with the TSP as collateral?

Tell them you'll give them a few hundred bucks (or more if the deal is good enough) at closing.Keep in mind though that small towns are a lot of work for little benefit because you'll likely never turn up another deal in Edison so you just wasted a bunch of time building up relationships there.

Keep in mind that as a married couple, you can hold a total of 20 properties in your name (10 in yours, 10 in your husbands). 

Landlord's decisions to go with a broker or to handle the leasing in-house is often a function of how much time you have to allocate towards leasing it yourself.

I do have a couple credit unions in mind that we'll check with.

@Iris Tunlaw it shouldn't matter but if you don't mind me asking....Why not just open a checking account?