Quote from @Kent Ford: Quote from @Jay Hinrichs: Quote from @Kent Ford: Quote from @Jay Hinrichs: the reasons you post.tax's  somewhat limited development regulations compared to other markets. work force   also close to Mexico and all the folks streaming in that need housing.building cost still lower than most of the country.Land forever .. no shortage sprawl is not a bad word.Political out look  conservative business friendly compared to West coast. 

I tell them all they can stay here forever.

And, in having to decide where to borrow funds from (others, hard money, our own equity, our own cash), we went with our own equity because it was the cheapest and most readily available capital.As a relatively new investor (i've been doing LTR's forever), I don't yet have solid relationships with others in order to move quickly with "OPM".Thank you for the advice here.

Catherine id highly recommend spending a full day or two consuming youtube videos that specifically go into detail about this process, theres so much to teach and writing this whole thing out would literally be a whole book.

I've also thought about direct contact, such as door to door or cold calling, but door to door is very time consuming and doesn't have the promise of meeting the actual owner of the property, and I still haven't figured out how to get phone lists of potential leads.

But it is taking FOREVER to get to that point.

Also hearing better than market results from those who are self managing as consumers continue to buck excessive fees by seeking to book direct.  

For me, Down Payment and Closing Cost, Since I am young and want this to be my retirement, I want to buy as much now and hold forever.

Dont tell your HML that you plan to occupy the property as HMLs cannot be done on occupied properties due to all the consumer protection laws in place. 

if you just bought a property with it, for example, you would likely lose money on it forever.