I'm an investor and property manager who is extremely knowledgeable about the Garland area.

When I started, I used a $64K HELOC, and today, I’ve grown it into a $3,000,000+ portfolio.That being said, BE EXTREMELY PICKY with your first property.

Keeping investor money safe in this environment requires extreme amounts of investigation. 

Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.The City of Detroit has 183 Neighborhoods we’ve analyzed.PM us if you’d like to discuss this logical approach in greater detail!

Establishing a relationship with a few of them locally or nationally [if you have a network] would be extremely beneficial.

Its extremely important when running tighter margins like what you're talking about to focus on age of HVAC, water heater, appliances, roof, etc.

This can be extremely costly.We have a two step program has no waiting period at all and will end up being quite a bit cheaper then the 3 month waiting period on closing costs, rate and NO pre-payment penalty. 

You can use Spokeo for cheap to lookup owner's numbers. 6 deals out of 191 was extremely good! 

Prices will be extremely high - I don't think most investors are buying in these areas unless you have a lot of money and plan to house hack.  

It makes for an extremely passive way to invest in real estate but at the end of the day you do have the say so on what happens at your property.