New Landlord in Boyd, TX (20 miles West of Ft Worth)

[Paul Ewing]

Hello all.  My name is Paul Ewing and I became a semi-accidental landlord in early 2012 when I bought the farm across the road from my that had a house and an older (1970s) singlewide.  My wife didn't want to move to the house so I am currently renting them both out.  I had very good luck with the singlewide after doing about $1500 in repairs and have had the same tenants in it since then.  I had several "learning experiences" with the house and tenant selection and management.  I now seem to have gotten a good one in the house. 

I am in the process of adding two more doublewides to a section of the land and getting them set up and renovated.  I am aiming for the middle and upper working class demographic and aim to keep all the properties at a level I wouldn't mind living in them.  This aggravated the guy that I had doing property management because he seemed to naturally drift towards to slum lord do the minimum possible mindset.   

I am looking to expand my real estate investment with other similar places in the area and in the next five years have a large percentage of my income from passive rental income. Being in the exurbs of the Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex means that we have lots of doublewides on one acre lots that are potential rental units. My parents had picked up three in 2012 for very good prices through HUD and an individual investor but it seems that the number of properties has greatly decreased and prices have doubled in the last year so I am doing a lot more looking.