I love Arlington, its a great area and the homes are still inexpensive enough for good starter home properties.

The $1000 is the $1000 extra from your paycheck that you aren’t using ($4000 paycheck and $3000 in expenses). 

Shipping containers are inexpensive and durable buildings for residential, commercial and even industrial use.

As a landlord you can very easily order credit, criminal, and eviction reports and they are very inexpensive.  

that's another 10% in expenses. 

I know that they will do conventional mortgages on inexpensive properties that are priced below what other banks will lend on.

I wasn’t paying attention but the price jumped out to me as relatively inexpensive.

Even in expensive markets like our DMV market, there are still several pockets where you can find deals at cheaper price points.  

Some would think $850k is inexpensive. 

Many CRE investors don't care to be landlords and they like the efficiency of larger properties (on-site staff, professional team (management, lenders, brokers, vendors), inexpensive vendor specialists (flooring, paint, HVAC, other trades), single location, cost segregation).