With such a competitive Dallas market, getting any house under 200k that's not in a rough area looks impossible.

If y0ou have a home at 300,000 you have to make 3k a month and finding a home at 300,000 and make that much rent is almost impossible. 

My wife and I have overhauled our personal budget to reflect the 'pay yourself first' approach (allocate in order: income comes in -> invest -> donate -> fixed expenses -> variable expenses -> fun $$).We are looking to see what experienced people generally recommend for a holding tank for that 'invest' allocation while we target our first real estate deal.What financial vehicles have you guys used that works well for this?

If you do your due diligence before you invest, it is almost impossible to lose money.

I don't think real estate is great there, however, as an investment vehicle. 

Nor do I look at real estate as my only vehicle to be able to exit the rat race.

If the insurance isn't done properly, it's on the edge of impossible to cash the check because it's made out to the lender, my company, and the seller(s). 

That is just not realistic.To illustrate this.. lets run this experiemtn.Imagine me giving 4000 people, that same list of 2000 contacts... what your claim then states... that pretty much 4000 people will all make a deal from 2000 leads.So 2 different people make a deal from ONE single house.So that too is proven wrong.So the way THEY told you that claim is completely wrong, and logically impossible.

It is not impossible here (have a great gulf front penthouse being listed this week), but generally speaking it is not the way to go in most markets I have ever looked at.

Therefore being able to gathering all the parceled proceeds back together for the one large purchase would be almost impossible.