Obviously you'll have more restrictions on the condo/townhouse side rehabbing, so thought I'd call that out so that you can plan accordingly. 

I'd rather buy SFH in a very good area than debt though, like say in Heights area of Houston. 

I will definitely be visiting the one in the Heights soon.

However, I was informed that the property is zoned as residential, and I need advice on how to proceed.Are there any legal or regulatory ways to overcome this zoning restriction?

There is no way I recommend selling unless the HOA starts being too restrictive. 

No HOA or any restrictions I can think of.

The only other way to get this info is to run rent/lease comps yourself (~10-15min), or do enough projects in that area to where you have it.Or for Thousand Oaks, etc:Or if we have a choice between two projects in different markets, I can use this chart to compare the two rental markets:-Basically anything to the right of 0 means the rent price/sf/mo has been growing QoQ, and the height is the current $/sf/mo of that market. 

After establishing this, the next most important aspect of this land would be its zoning and restrictive covenants.

@Doreen LinderHappy to connect and discuss the local rental restrictions for STR's on the Gulf Coast.

Also, if you plan on doing rentals down the line, you could use non-conventional programs like DSCR that doesn't restrict you by DTI.