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

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.

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.

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. 

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.

We’ve seen this issue cause otherwise wonderful new builds to sit on the market because it just doesn’t work with peoples furniture. 

Refinances are still active, slim pickings but some players are out there who are direct lenders, flip loans are also available (75-100K) min property other than conventional and gov backed loans.  

I don’t have a crystal ball either but we are definitely feeling a pick up in the market. 

Right now the market in Pittsburgh is pretty good for picking up small multi-units.

Longer story short, I have a nicer rental that I picked up in the Dallas area.