I'm sure there are bad areas there just like everywhere else but I'm just hoping to get some perspective.

Any particular justification as to why North of Arlington is a better choice?

It seems like a pretty solid choice for building wealth.

The equity, the convenience that its super close to me, the experience, and my confidence that this area seems to have a good outlook in its potential growth and if I’m being honest a 300 dollar payment for a potentially 500,000 house doesn’t seem bad at all.

This is not a good choice for your first property.

Sooner or later, allowing your tenant to do things like this goes bad and leads to you losing lots of money.

@Aadejoke Jagunna first off let  me say you seem to have a good head on your shoulders and you seem to be making good choices.

I took out my ad my bad.                                                                                                                                                           

I am considering a new town home as a starting point and would love any advice around that as well (if it's a bad idea / gotchas around that).Regards,Soup Nikk

In your situation having a paid off property is only compounding the problems on what is actually a very poor choice for a investment income property.At a value of 350K and realistically assigning a opportunity value of 10% to that equity it is costing you $2900/month in lost income on your cash.