Seeking quality North Dallas area house to rent (landlord in Tulsa)

[Ian Kelly]

Hello everyone,

My wife and I - who are landlords in Tulsa - have accepted a position in Dallas (office at intersection of Dallas North Tollway and Northwest Highway) and are now actively seeking a great house (not townhome or condo) to rent for ourselves in the North Dallas, Far North Dallas, Addison, Carrollton or Farmers Branch areas (as well as any other recommended areas since we don't know the DFW well - Garland, Richardson, North Irving??).  While we will visit the area on a house-hunting trip (tentatively slated for May 7-9), we've been limited to a long-distance search thus far (we currently reside in Pennsylvania); we've been using Zillow, Craig's List & Ebby's websites (attempted to use Dallas Morning News website with poor results), but I get a sense that there must be better resources to use.

Our intent in posting is to seek recommendations about better resources to use in locating a quality rental property (including real estate professionals that anyone may recommend) in the North Dallas area and, if we're fortunate, perhaps connect with a landlord who has rental properties available in this specific area.  We'll take great care of a property:  I'm a veteran & service academy graduate and my wife (who is a better person than me by a mile!) has earned her Master's degree, and we have 2 recent landlord references to provide.  I'd certainly like to minimize my commute.  We're both non-smokers (a property that hasn't been smoked in would be outstanding) who seek a 3+ bedroom (possibly 2 bedroom if there were a separate office), 1.5+ bathroom house with a fenced yard, garage (2+ car preferred) in a very safe & secure neighborhood (I will travel some for work).  A gas dryer connection would be preferred.  We envision being multi-year occupants.  We do have 3 pets (all female & spayed) - a 7-year old lab, a 7-year old beagle & a 10+ year old manx cat - who haven't damaged property in the past and we're very agreeable to a refundable pet deposit of almost any amount & accepting of a reasonable non-refundable pet deposit - we'll take responsibility for our pets.  While we're still developing a sense of how far a dollar goes in this area, we need to keep our rent under $2500/month and would prefer to keep it under $2000/month.  We'd like to move into a property around June 1st, but could delay until as late as July or - to a lesser degree - have some flexibility to begin a lease in May.

Many thanks for any help you're good enough to provide!  (And if there is a more productive & appropriate area of Bigger Pockets' Forums for this to be posted, please let us know!)

Ian Kelly