Sara,When you buy an investment property the Bank/Lender lends you the money for the purchase minus the down payment.

As it stands, if I were to keep this house I would need to rent for a few  years to be able to comfortably afford another down payment (I'm in a very HCOL area now). 

During that refinance you can transition it into an investment and Vested in an LLC either through closing or a Quit Claim Deed after you close at the County.It's kind of a Bank/Lender Loophole because you take advantage of the 10% down Second Home/Vacation home down payment.

If you are using a true hard money lender, they are able to put numbers together for you quickly and provide you with a term sheet showing cost, rate, payment, down payment etc. 

We have many beach condominium options in Orange Beach/Gulf Shores that qualify as a second home investment with programs with as low as 10% down, so you don't always have to come up with the larger down payment, but some buyers choose to go with a higher down payment to get a better rate. 

BP forums helped me learn about 10% down payment options from local lenders and that I could borrow from my 4001k for the down payment.

@Nancy NevilleI have set up as you described above, but the rent payments received show up in reports as a negative amount and the expense show as a positive amount.

Very few options.. but there should be someone out there that would do this for you given your down payment.

Would you not do section 8 I’d take your equity and use as a down payment so your probably looking at let’s say 400-500k range, I’d probably either look for a single family in a different part of Baltimore county, Catonsville, Towson, parkville etc. or I have a rental property on the eastern shore of Md, I really like that market.

@Olivia Cannizzobuying a primary residence is a very personal decision, and I normally try not to advise on itbut - buying is expensive, in that you can pay significant closing costs on top of the down paymentso... to buy something to live in for 9 months, and then be negative if it's a rental... and now your 20% is stuck in it and not available for when you movedoesn't make a lot of sense to me unless i am missing something.if you move, you could house hack in the new place with a much lower down payment loan... and that frees up a ton of cash for other things.