Even if you rent the house for $2,000 a month, you will still lose because of maintenance, vacancies, and the expensive mistakes common with newer investors.You can borrow up to 70% of the equity.

Well, STR can work well for people who own a vacation house for personal use, and just want to generate some extra income when not in use.  

Current house is 2500 sqFt 4 bed 2.5 baths. 

Many Texas cities are incentivizing developers to build affordable housing units, but challenges remain around keeping these homes accessible long-term.

I bought my first house when I was 24 and now have 5 relatively small properties in Michigan!

The loan is with you, not with your tenant, so none of that means anything to them - in fact because you live in one unit and it's under 4, if you were self-managing you don't even have to abide by fair housing laws (at least on the federal level). 

House hacking is the best tried-and-true method for new investors in my opinion.

But, you still own house and benefits are as follows.1. tax benefits2. principal payoff on your note.3.

Each area has its own rules on how it works, but basically, you buy the house, pay a deposit and agree to rehab the house within a certain amount of time.

I happen to be looking for gap funders myself for a number of my house flip projects in Houston, TX and finding gap funders or any kind of private money involves a lot of networking and putting myself out there to meet potential lenders.