New to RE Investing- ready for my first rental investment

[Account Closed]

Hello Fellow BP'ers,

I'm new to RE investing and wanted to get some advice from you all. I am a recent member to BP and so far, I'm loving the site and the members are always helpful and the depth of information on the forum is mind boggling!!

My wife and I are residents of Los Angeles where we both hold stable full time jobs. We have lots of friends and family in Dallas area and are interested in purchasing either a single family home or an apartment that is preferably turn key so that we can rent it out. Our max purchase price is 160K and we can put 20% down for the mortgage. 

1. As a general investment question, will it be better to buy a single family home or a couple 1-bedroom apartments. Hows the rental market for single family homes.

2. Are there any up and coming areas of DFW metroplex that we should be looking in. 

3. After Mortgage, insurance and taxes, Is it realistic to expect atleast $5-600 cash flow from the property.

Thanks in advance 

- Sandeep

[Mike D'Arrigo]

@Account Closed If the reason that you're looking to invest in Dallas is because you have lots of friends and family there, you may want to rethink that. Having friends and family doesn't say anything about whether it's a market that fits your criteria and investment goals. It seems that cash flow is your primary goal, so that being the case, why Dallas? Dallas is among the highest in the nation for property taxes and homeowners insurance which kills your cash flow. I can tell you that even in high cash flow markets like Indianapolis and Kansas City that I have a lot of experience in, you can't get $500-$600/mth cash flow on single family properties. You can do it with multifamily, but I would also question your criteria of 1Br. That really limits your tenant pool and often times you get young, transient tenants that move around a lot. I recommend that you clearly define your objectives and then choose the market that best helps you achieve those objectives, not just because you have friends and family there. You'd already be investing out of state. If you're going to do that, you have the opportunity to choose the best market possible.