We own home in Lakeview New Olreans, renting while relocating to Houston

[James Halk]

Hello all,

My name is James and I'm hoping to learn a lot from this site about developing a rental property portfolio. My fiancee and I are professionals with careers, but I already own a side business teaching scuba diving and I'm always looking for new entrepreneurial activities. I have pretty good people skills, I'm can do most repairs and maintenance myself, and don't get to stressed out in tough situations. That's why I think slowly getting a few rental properties would be a great idea. My fiancee will probably be very passive with this; she'll be interested in the well-being our finances but not interested in managing the properties or tenants.

She will be relocating to Houston in the early summer for her residency program at Baylor. Due to a graduate program I started, I will be staying in New Orleans for a year before I also move to Houston. We currently own a 3/2.5 house in a nice part of New Orleans (Lakeview). It's part of a duplex, but a nice one. We bought it for $300k and it's totally paid for, but I wouldn't imagine it will have appreciated much. Prices seem to just be getting back above pre Katrina levels, but I think we'd be better of renting it out than selling it. We may also move back to New Orleans in a few years. 

The strategy that I'll be investigating is this:

• Rent my remaining 2 BRs for our house in New Orleans for about $1k/month.
• Purchase a 1 or 2 BR condo near the hospital district in Houston for Cristi to live in for 1 year, and use the $1k cash flow to cover the mortgage. Budget is around $100-$150k. 
• After 1 year when I move to Houston, we can buy a larger home for ourselves and rent the NO and HOU properties for about $2k and $1k, respectively. 

My main handicap is that I don't know anything about Houston neighborhoods and opportunities, other than that it blew up with the oil field activity and now I might find some good opportunities if oil stays low. Since she has to live there for a year and be near the hospital, we will be looking around the University district area. 

Thanks for reading my post, and I'll welcome any advice, especially about the Houston condo and opportunities there.