I know your cost of living May be higher than mine was (I live in Virginia), but the skills you develop from this will be extremely useful in many ways. 

Development and flips work too but I look at that as more of a business.

Sherman is about 30 minutes north of there and many of the biggest nationwide and local residential developers have bought land and working on master planned communities.   

Specifically, there's job growth (Intel, Honda, Amazon, Nationwide, etc) and the population is growing (unlike Cleveland or Cincy).

@Christopher MorrisTo assess a market, consider population growth, job market, economic growth, rent-to-price ratio, cost of living, school districts, and growth benchmarks.

It's expensive in Mexican development to switch providers after this planning phase.

Develop a team with essential members, focus on moderate property prices and high demand, and start with cosmetic flips.

In these early stages of learning and developing as an investor, I'm primarily focused on properties that may require the following: paint, flooring, bathroom/kitchen remodel, drywall, light fixtures, exterior landscaping, siding, or new HVAC.

For example, when most of my development clients started building their portfolios, they picked up properties in areas where at least 1 of 3 things was almost always present: 1) They currently or have previously lived in the area, 2) they have family or friends that attend religious services in the area, or 3) they regularly visit family or friends that live in the area.

There are some people coming back because there's a segment of the population who love living in the city and being walking distance to restaurants, stores etc.