Now I have to stare at their ugly house out my dining room window.

Or you buy a 2500+ sf house with a lot of bonus rooms that might be listed on mls as a 4/3 but really be a 6/3 or 7/3 with formal dining room, office, etc.

Where as the smokies offers this plus major shopping, dining, activities etc. 

We're about to renovate a kitchen, dining room, office & 2 bathrooms in 1 of our rentals so we plan to document this so we know how long certain sized rooms take and what not & hopefully kind of use that on future flips!

In fact some of their sales are UP because people can't go eat at the sit down full service dining options.Additionally pharmacy is doing extremely well and grocery stores with increased business.

Plenty of shopping/dining at the Forum, Randolph AFB, and being close to 1604/1-35/ and 1-10!

Every inch of my 10-room house except the living/dining area is completely full of tenant belongings, such that it's verging on a hoard. 3 generations of a family (3 adults, 2 teens), are on the lease.

I would instead buy a 4-5 bedroom urban SFH in good shape which I could convert into a rooming house: I would find a way to close off the downstairs living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom to turn them into my apartment and rent out each of the upstairs bedrooms to a different occupant. 

I wanted to try painting the dining room with some orange in it. 

Living room, dining room, kitchen are all at the same level, but family room has a step down.