Potomac Ave metro area near Eastern Market and extending down Penn Ave toward the river has new condos, Navy Yard near the ball park, near Catholic U, Petworth, Stadium Armory.

As others have said try to avoid analysis paralysis and get out to meetups and network to get the ball rolling. 

You can look her up pretty easily.They only service loans in Texas, so you are golden.

Its one thing the franchisor giving OK to me, but its a completely different ball game for me to get the loan.

I want a reliable income for my golden years.  

Thank you, @Richard Ball@Mark Nolan Thank you!

I want to get the ball rolling so any advice would be great!  

Until venturing into Vacation Rentals we've always managed our own portfolio and will continue to do so in the VR arena as well @Michael Wind for a variety of reasons.We're a licensed RE brokerGenera ContractorInvestorOnly invest in local properties that we can easily manageDon't really trust most PM's Enjoy realizing the maximum amount of ROI we realize doing it this way.Being our own PM helps us keep our eye on the ball at all times thus very intimately vested in our properties and able to arise to any occasion anytime.Add to that we've had some experience in being owners in abstentia with not to positive results.

Really puts the ball in the buyers court so to speak.

Put yourself in the banks shoes, if they didn't require this then the housing market would turn into a craigslist posting site with tire kickers throwing out millions of low ball offers hoping for someone to accept.