Likewise another would be they are in between closings on their primary residence/commercial and prefer to rent in the interim than lodge/purchase in a hotel/storage.What is an issue is where they conduct business as such.

My goal is to purchase a single family home in the Alexandria or Fairfax/Vienna area:-as a primary residence-requires minor to moderate rehab-that I can turn into a rental in 1 year and cover expenses-and I can save some of my cash for a second property to turn into PRI'm recently married so I've got to bring my wife along on this journey...

Also keep in mind a lender is going to want to see reserve funds in the amount of 2 months for your primary residence and 6 months for the investment property.

The two most common ways of doing this are to raise rents or lower operating expenses. [ I was going to give examples with numbers here, but Tom Bucaceck has an in-depth explanation in a BP blog post https://www.biggerpockets.com/articles/924-underst... ]Hope that helps!

California and were just told by the escrow company we have to pay 3.3% taxes to California because we live in FL and the property was not our primary residence.

Are you trying to apply for a primary residence home loan?  

From what I read of the 1st 2 sentences, it would appear @Justin Bushis now in the process of getting a HELOC on their primary property.

It seems like going over budget is one of the primary things that cause investors to lose money on their first deal. 

Your expenses on your current primary property are going to consume any cash-flow of the monthly rent, especially over time.  

My primary source of income/employment has nothing to do with real estate.2.