New to Houston Area Looking for some advice

[Richard Mcatee]

Hello Everyone,

I just moved to the Woodlands area, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am currently renting an apartment until I can learn the area and buy my next deal. I am very new to real estate investing and this would be my second deal. I currently own a duplex in Fort Lauderdale right now. I used to live in the front half and air bnb out the back half. Now that I have moved to Houston, I rented the front half out as a long-term rental and the back half is a STR on air bnb. It's currently cash flowing about $1000 a month and has been a great deal. I attribute most of my success because I had an amazing realtor Heidi Braunhardt of Fort Lauderdale who spoon fed me a lot of information and mentored me through the whole process. Look her up if you are investing in south Florida. I met her on here. She is AMAZING!

I would like to use the same strategy here in Houston and purchase another duplex or triplex where I could live in one unit and rent out the others either STR or LTR. I have not seen too many multifamily in this part of Houston. Are there any areas that anyone here can recommend I look at that would be safe to live in as well as rent out?

My second idea would be to buy a single-family home with a detached garage and convert the garage into an apartment to have another LTR or STR.  Does anyone have any experience with this in Houston? Is it easy to get permits for and allowed in certain communities? If so, where would you recommend, I look?

My last idea would be to buy a single-family home and house hack. Does anybody have any experience with this in Houston and recommend any areas I should look at?

Lastly is there anything I am missing here? Anyone on here with any recommendations on something I haven't considered? Also, anybody have a good realtor recommendation for the area?

Thank you so much in advance, 

Ricky