Listings come from nurturing your database for years, so if you are new, you have to pick a niche or an area that you have a competitive advantage in.

As a result, I have been meeting with other wholesalers and picking their brains to see how they run their business.

If I would have used competent management, the manager that I picked and vetted, then it would have cash flowed, assuming they could have filled the vacancies.The big lesson I learned is that the property manager selected can make or break a deal. 

My advice: don’t overthink it—your first house hack is about learning, so pick a strong rental market, ensure solid demand, and lock in a deal that gets you close to break-even or better.

The 1% rule is best only used as a quick and dirty evaluation used to pick which property you plan on running additonal calculations on.

Buy a quality property, stay away from the hood, rehab it as if you would move in, take your time picking a tenant, you'll be find.

I’d be happy to talk with you and help you analyze deals, and if I’m your agent that’s great, if not that’s okay too, just make sure you pick an agent who owns rental properties themselves if that’s what you are trying to do.

Fast-forward, and she’s used the equity to pick up two more invsetment properties.

It’s great that you’ve already identified zip codes like 73128, 73170, and 73135; they all have unique advantages worth exploring.I agree with the earlier response—73170 and 73135 are solid picks.

Hi Dave, welcome to the real estate worldCollin, Denton, and Grayson counties are great picks with growing demand and strong rental potential.