Hi, I am buying a house in South Phili for a short or mid term rental.Anyone has an idea about how hard to take the license and general process and period of the licensing from the town?

If you can't find one you can house hack, found houses with garages, attics, or basements you can rent out, or find property where you can add ADUs or put trailers out for people to rent.

A few weeks after painting, light brown marks appeared at the top of some of the top corners of a few of the walls on both sides of the house, upstairs and downstairs (not the ceilings, just the tops of the walls). 

I had the idea these housing prices would start coming back down to earth sooner; I'm currently in a home that I planned to rent when I purchased it.

If you can go FHA focus on a house hack.

Do they think people actually will show up at there house protesting or something?

Before we bought our new house which wasn't quite planned, we refinanced our townhouse to a 15 year mortgage to speed up paying it off.

I'm a contractor and have been maintaining and upgrading the house since I've lived in it.

If you're buying in cheap/rough areas then you're likely going to be getting market rate tenants who, for whatever reason (but usually something in their criminal or rental background) can't rent in better areas and can't qualify for vouchers.Nothing wrong with being a low-income housing provider as an RE strategy, just don't assume that subsidized tenants will be flocking to your units.Good luck!

Which cause the housing prices to drop dramatically.