Newbie from the DFW area

[Alex Montiel]

Hello everyone,

I've been a fan of the BiggerPockets podcast and other real estate investing podcasts, such as InvestFourMore with Mark Ferguson, for quite a while now.  I've also been reading a lot of books on how this all works, including the two by Brandon Turner, and am now ready to take the plunge into the exciting world of real estate investing.

I recently moved back to the Dallas/Fort Worth area after going to school in Austin, TX and spending a few years in Houston, TX for my first 9-5.  My wife and I ended up buying our first home (primary residence) in Richardson, TX which happens to be only a few minutes from where I went to highschool (Wylie, TX).  Now that we've got settled in, I've started doing some research on areas of where I'd like to invest and have even started discussions with my bank to get another conventional mortgage in my name to start investing in real estate.  I'm hoping to hear back early next week if I qualified and what the terms of the loan would be!

I'm looking to get started with buy and hold investing for single family homes.  I've analyzed a few deals in the area, but because the market is so hot right now (we had to go over list to even get our primary residence) it does seem to be quite difficult.  I'm a very "numbers" oriented kind of person, so I started with a top down approach to see which neighborhoods may be good investment areas based on different metrics that investors talk about (1% rule, etc.) and of course there are no houses listed in that area.  I'd be interested to see where other folks in my area are doing deals (don't have to be too specific) or how they approach finding deals in this market.  Apologies if that's a better topic for another thread, but mostly wanted to drop in and officially say hello to the BiggerPockets community!

Thanks!
-Alex

[Brett Snodgrass]

Hi @Alex Montiel ,

Welcome to the BP community! Thanks for taking the time to post and introduce yourself. It sounds like you've been thinking things through. I'd encourage you to join your local REIAs (search meetup.com) and BP meetups (search here) so that you can meet and start connecting with investors in your area. It'll be a good way to get insights on your area.  All the best!