Newbie from NYC - Looking to relocate to the DFW/North Texas area

[James L.]

Hi! I'm James. I currently live in New York City, where I was born and raised. As much as I love New York, I plan to relocate to Dallas in 2 to 3 years for a quieter, calmer, and better quality of life for me and my little family. This is also the reason why I am looking to invest in rental properties (single family homes) in the DFW/North Texas area to start.

I currently work as a project manager for a global financial institution and I am also a personal finance blogger. 

I am just getting started so still need to figure out quite a few things like:

• The type of business entity I should set up
• The county/neighborhood I should look at and how to determine whether there are cash flow deals
• Good contacts (i.e. property managers, contractors, agents, etc.,)

Super excited to get things going and take advantage (and hopefully be able to contribute at some point) of this great community!

[Vanessa Homuth]

Welcome! I own three rental properties in the northern Dallas suburbs (Plano, Frisco, Little Elm) and have found them to be excellent markets. The corporate job activity in the area has made renting these properties for good cash flow a breeze (not to mention good appreciation). I use Plano Property Management (Harry Boysen) since we are out of state and didn't have contacts setup to manage them ourselves. I was also able to negotiate a discount on new tenant fees by having Harry as my agent when I bought the properties. I also get a discount for having multiple properties with them. That being said, with more experience now, I am debating just managing them myself at this point to save on fees.

In terms of areas, I would definitely recommend the norther Dallas suburbs since there is so much job growth in that area. Frisco is a great growing area. With Little Elm, you want to make sure the property is in Frisco schools and not Little Elm. Plano has gotten much pricier, so it is harder to find good cash flow properties in that area.

Good luck!