A two-family home is generally easier to finance, since most residential lenders treat a property up to four units as a standard mortgage, while a larger multi-family building often requires commercial financing with different down payment and rate terms.
A larger multi-family building spreads vacancy risk across more units, so losing one tenant hurts less than losing your only tenant in a two-family setup, but it also means more maintenance and tenant management on an ongoing basis. In a newer neighbourhood like Silverspring, tenant demand tends to skew toward buyers rather than long-term renters, which affects how quickly either type of property leases up.
Joel Dyck can confirm what multi-family inventory actually exists in Silverspring right now and model both scenarios against real comparable properties. Get your hand-reviewed valuation from Joel Dyck.