Starting out in Houston, TX - advice?

[James Farrior]

Hi all,

I live in Houston. My wife and I just bought our first house (small midtown townhouse) for ourselves (closing in late January), and I'm planning on buying some rental properties later this year. We have a good chunk of change saved (~250K after down payment on our first house) and we make a bit over $200K combined from our day jobs.

I'm thinking that a multi-plex in third ward may be the way to go for our first rental, maybe with 10% down. I've seen a couple of tri-plexes at $200-$250K where the three units combined would rent out for $2500 - $3000, especially in the U of H area. I've run the numbers a bit on building a multiplex new, and it doesn't seem to work out very well. Other than that, not sure how to start. Advice? Thanks.