Further, given the heat and continuing dampness its likely there's mold. 

The crash motivated me to educate myself about money.

Sometimes the education and experience is worth more than gold.

I am going to continue to read real estate and investing books, read forums on Bigger Pockets, and listen to the podcasts for the rest of this year into 2019 to arm myself with knowledge to make the process easier come time to take action. 

You will find a ton of helpful resources, especially under the Education section of BP.My recommendation is to pick one niche in real estate and stick to it until you fully learn it and it is operating like a well oiled machine.

Cheap education that the tenants pay part of.  

Continuing on your path and buying a multi-family unit every six months to a year would get you scaled up pretty quickly in five years.

As Chad mentioned Maryland is difficult as well but I have 20% of my portfolio there as I took the time to understand the rules and put a kick *** team in placeIf you are new to note investing them I agree wholeheartedly with the other comments - once you get some experience then you can decide where to continue to grow.

He even used bolt cutters on the padlock to continue squatting! 

You need to educate yourself.