You receive a "stepped up" basis as of the date of death (or alternate date as provided by the IRS code).  

I have also never heard of such polices covering loss of rent ... nor any policy providing loss of rent for a property which has yet to be put into service.You may be able to obtain an alternate form of builders coverage.The man to ask is @J Scott who does lots of renovations and just so happens to live in Maryland now.

Open to alternative locations as well.    

In fact, when the market goes down that's when the true investors back up the truck and buy even more deals!

Alternatives?  

Though the rent amount is in line with the area, your tenant pool is more limited, and there's a lot more space to maintain and get damaged, so your returns likely won't be so great.If you find that it's difficult to rent, I thought @Corby Goade's idea of converting it to a duplex is a good one if the building and zoning will permit it; alternately, you could knock out a wall to combine a couple of bedrooms to make it a 5/3 or even a 4/3 (or use some creative marketing - it's 5BR + office/den/whatever) to help make it sound more in line with norms.Hopefully you'll find a family that will want to rent it for years and years - it'll no doubt get torn up, but we all run that risk with our properties.  

If you wish to learn about some alternatives you likely haven't heard about before, please give me a call.Many thanks- Leslie

Two weeks later the landlord gets a call his 2005 ford is involved in a hit and run ,  the landlord tells the cop that that truck is in the driveway with the motor out ( 6.0 diesel ) .

So looking for alternative time investment opportunities, REI was the obvious choice.

Yes we had a tree issue...a large pine tree fell on my BF truck.