Asking about the SW suburbs specifically, in the land of long sidewalks and big actual parking lots. 

Squatters are a real problem nationally and a study found that they target not only vacant properties but those advertised for rent or sale that offer 'immediate occupancy.' 

Mobile home parks?

We built a single family home version of a 2 bed 1 bath with surface parking at cost with no profit all in with land for 175k in newark ohio, a suburb of columbus ohio. when we push that to 3 units and closer to the city for our build to rent model the numbers go way better. a 30k slab for a single family home is 30k, a 30k slab for a triplex is 10k a door. we designed a 2 bed 1 bath design at 668 sq ft and it's very good layout even I would live there, but I would never build anything that small again. there's no economies of scale. you need density and shared lines, resources, shared roof shared slab, shared windows, etc the cost goes way down.

We have a parking lot in need of paving, and the building will likely need to be re-sided.

Go to small local/regional banks NOT national ones.

For example, if your driveway only fits two cars, you need to know if tenants plan to bring several vehicles, as this could lead to parking violations and HOA fines.Don’t forget to screen pets, too!

Even as a Foregin National you can still take out up to 75% Cash out depending on your citizenship. 

It’s now estimated that Texas has 31.29 million residents, up from the 2020 count of 29.15 million.But Texas also ranked as the top state in the nation for domestic migration and natural increases over the past year.

You may be excellent at what you do and beat the national average in every category of your expertise.