One of the biggest challenges for everyone involved is being on the same page about the actual time required for maintenance.DIY landlords rarely properly track their time when it comes to property management in general - tracking their true time invested in maintenance is where they perform the worst.Investors that hire PMCs are rarely any better at understanding the true amount of time maintenance takes.

There are fees associated with going to Real Estate school, obtaining your license, joining the board and MLS for your area, getting proper E&O insurance and so forth. 

If you learn how to use Hard Money loans properly and how to find good deals in need of rehab, there are plenty of areas of the country where you could buy 3-4 rent properties in solid middle class areas with good cashflow.

It gives you the flexibility kind of like a credit card that allows you to borrow a certain limit and withdraw funds as needed.

If this is your first deal, it's probably best to get a lawyer to make sure you're doing everything properly.

Proper underwriting is important.  

@Britt Abbey perhaps the dryer is not functioning properly and so has to be used 10x more than washer.

Caution:  Personal credit card financing is a huge risk and good luck finding 0 percent interest today.

So an investor buys the property, you pay them a down payment for the lease option then pay rent for a year and after a year you have option to buy it.What makes this challenging is the lease option payment would probably need to be around 20% of the purchase price but it sounds likeyou do not have it. maybe moving is just not in the cards.

If that’s the case, I’d recommend considering areas outside of Dallas proper where you can still find properties with strong growth potential.Cities like Prosper, Melissa, Princeton, and Anna are excellent options to explore.