Planning for my first property within the new few years in DFW

[James Krahula]

Hello all. I'm new to this world and excited about learning more. I'm currently in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and I'm looking at taking my first steps towards financial independence. I've made huge gains in paying down my debt over the last few years and only have student loans and a car loan left (both with great interest rates). 

I've started saving up for a down payment and I've been doing as much reading on the subject of rental properties and growing my knowledge on finances. I still have a few more years to go before I will be in a place where I have the financial stability and knowledge to purchase my first property, but I want to make sure that I am as prepared for that day as possible.

So far I've read "The Book On Rental Property Investing" and "The Book On Investing in Real Estate with No (and low) Money Down" which pointed me towards everyone here on this forum considering you only read BiggerPockets once or twice a page! I've also read some other suggested books like "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "The 4-Hour Workweek" as well as many others are next on my list.

As of now I am planning to go the house hacking route considering I'm still young, single, and moving is still a very viable option for me at this stage of my life and using a FHA loan will be nice while I am still trying to build more cash flow and get my foot in the door.

Hopefully I'm still able to learn way more in the coming months to help make myself even more prepared, and I look forward to learning from everyone here as well.

[Isaac Barnett]

Howdy, I am also in the DFW area and my wife and I are looking to make our first purchase in 3-3.5 years as well. Nice to know a local is at the same spot in the game as we are.
I am just in the beginning stage of planning/learning, so you are a bit ahead of us. We should be able to put back 50,000 in the next 36-42 months and I was considering getting into some nicer properties to minimize our bad tenant risk.
We are also pretty young (30 and 28), but I haven't done enough reading to really understand the house hacking yet, and it seems to be a bit higher risk than going it one unit at a time.