Nadine, congrats for taking the leap of faith and coming out smiling on your way to the bank! 

The tenant simply wouldn't pay them, so I have two options: Fail the inspection and have the house drop out of the program, or pay and continue to collect healthy checks.

Start out strong building that healthy reputation and it will follow you throughout your life. 

Compare the two and look at the similarities or differences.Is there a healthy mixture of majority and minority people living in the area?

This total is about 25%, so your 10% security margin seems low.At 5% down you would want a fairly healthy reserve fund for unexpected high cost maintenance or vacancies as you have very little equity available.As it is, you're catching a falling knife in Grand Prairie and it is certainly conceivable that property prices and rents could fall a further 5%+ over the next 12 months, putting you in negative equity and cash flow territory. 

Wear a suit , smile a bit more (not suggesting subservience) beat them to the punch by projecting your good jovial attitude on them.

The Bigger Pockets community loves to see your smiling face.Setup alerts that pertain to your city/area and personal investing goals.

If one looks at underpinnings, "as a whole" the US market should keep modestly expanding over the next several decades - we have a healthy birth rate, good influx of immigration, diversity of household, and plenty of land to build and rehabilitate.

Every time someone tells me I am crazy for quitting my 8-4 & very well paid government job to be a full-time RE investor; I nod, smile and say I know.

I would plan on putting $400 away a month for cap ex and repairs to start, but it's pretty newly renovated so I expect that will build to a healthy cushion early and I could back off the repair budget (still doing a few hundred for cap ex) after 6 months.