We live in Medina at the moment and our lease is up at the end of April 2025.

In 3-4 years, you will not have a lot of equity in the home, so I'm not sure you'd want to refinance (if you plan on trying that, talk the bank because ending your mortgage before the term is up (ie 1 yr, 2 yr) comes with a heavy interest penalty (basically you have to pay out all of the interest remaining for the rest of that term).As for renting vs investing elsewhere-run the numbers as to what your payments would be if you bought a house including insurance and property taxes and repairs vs renting. 

Particularly in the inland empire/surrounding cities of the high desert. 

I’ve flipped in the dc area for years, right now there is just money & in the vast majority of cases there is high likelihood of losing money, right now the best investments in the area imo are buy & hold, I’ve even gone full circle and while I really liked value add for most of the last decade I think in a lot of ways new construction especially in more affordable markets (I’m personally a big fan of the eastern shore market) is a much better way to make money long term than flipping and brrring while I know they are sexy & certainly you getting a huge paycheck is great, there just isn’t any money in it right now, especially in nova. 

Keep in mind though, the higher the EMD requirement, you may end up having buyers pass on the deal, so just make sure the amount is fair to both sides.

Literally.At the market/economic level, this policy is highly problematic in 2 major ways, both of which are inflationary.

The downstairs unit (1 bed/1 bath) I'm currently living in but I need to move back to Los Angeles at the end of the month.

I'm sure there are plenty of back-end devs out there ready to take this challenge on, though!

Someone with one newer aged rental, who has a rather high income, such as a surgeon who lives alone comfortably with a lot of disposable income, could possibly carry less than a Mr and Mrs just starting out, with one rental that they bought as a turnkey in a more downtrodden neighborhood in a different state.

Horrible experience with this company.I ended up selling my property within 2 years.