Tenant Friendly (Texas)

[ShaVontze Young]

How friendly is Texas on its tenants for first time buyers renting place out ?

[James Call]

@Andrew Durosola & @ShaVontze Young,

It looks like there was a little bad info from the mortgage guy, just because of different terminology.  As @Greg H. mentioned, once you get a house and get a loan on it and pay the down payment, and "close" on it at the title company, it is considered that you "OWN" the house.  

We all know that the bank owns us now, but technically it is your house. :)

The kicker is that when you get a loan for your own first home, you can usually get into it for 5% or even less down.  I have found that when I buy property for investment, I want to put 20% down to just keep my payments in the "safe zone".  

You will want to just tell the mortgage broker or loan officer that you want to buy an investment property and rent it out.  They will help you see what loans are available.  I would also talk to a few different loan officers and ask them what is required and how it works.

We are looking at getting a new construction loan and we have talked to a couple of different places, and it is crazy how completely different their offerings are.  

I wish you great success on this.  It sounds like you may want to find someone to work with or spend a little more time reading in the forums here at BP before jumping into this.  Real Estate investing is not for the faint of heart, and if you don't know much going into it, you will have to learn the hard way.  I would spend a couple of months reading here for an hour or two a day before going to the bank or getting a realtor.