But let’s go a later deeper - my down payment would come out of a well performing stock portfolio.

Meetup.com is a good resource for those but some of the groups will also post here on Bigger Pockets Marketplace too.

Austin is more of an appreciation play than cash flow. 

They are starting to age out.5.  

Plus new folks do a very poor job of screening the buyer for Ability To Repay (ATR) which involves pulling full doc and calculating the borrowers DTI, honest income, honest debt payments, prior debt payment histor (FICO) etc etc.Plus shockingly (or shocking to sellers) if you bought this investment house, fixed it, then are selling with financing you are selling "inventory" and y9ou owe taxes on the gain in the year of sale, you are NOT able to use installment sale to spread out paying taxes. 

I have 10 years of construction experience and my partner does as well.

Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself here on BiggerPockets. My name is Carsyn Childress, and I work in the acquisitions department at REI Nation, i.e. I buy houses!
I never knew I would love real estate inve...

Was going for the best cost-of funds (lower rate)

Someone might get value out of it though.