Or you could charge premium rent, collect good money while you have renters and if some move out, no sweat as you have been getting premium rent for a few months.

The owner knows this boosts his business and therefore allows Billy to share in the profit from the intangibles that he brings to the show with the .25 cent wage premium. 

I would switch your thinking from looking for that elusive unicorn duplex in a nice neighborhood which you will have to pay a premium for because it's a rare multi-family property in DC, to looking for a house with an english basement, like I think you are suggesting by buying a home in Brookland. 

Annual insurance premiums seem to have "price stickiness" in the neighborhood of $800 per year or so.

., near the Pacific Ocean in premium locations with high lot rents and strong demand or well located parks with major operational upside).I wouldn’t get spooked by the 9% cap rate.  

From the research I've done, it seems there are usually fees and points associated with these kinds of loans, such as a mortgage insurance premium (MIP) of around 1.5-2% of the purchase price, due at closing. 

Plus at the end of the day, 99.9% of our guests are not looking to take extra supplies and we charge a premium on our cleaning fees to cover all of our supplies plus a profit anyway; so if someone decides to do some extra laundry or even take my $12 laundry detergent, we've already charged them more than that on the cleaning fee so we don't sweat the small stuff anymore :-)

That way, if I can get a premium for renting it for a month or two in Jan/Feb, I can always fly back to Scottsdale to re-list once the short term tenants leave.  

If there is more than you can chew you can ask for a premium.

Sand, prime, sand, paint, sand, paint with a spray gun and premium paint.