I leaned doing business in Texas everyone surveys before closing. out in the west we rarely do that unless its acreage or some other special circumstances we simply would not have enough surveyors to keep up with resi transactions in a timely manner.. but I can see in Texas were the land use rules and no building codes or lax ones and no licenses required years ago.. that you need to do this.. you opened my eyes on that one. 

For example, there's a 1950 duplex for sale (West Palm Beach, FL) for $500k with each tenant (MoM) paying $1,500 = $3k/moThe mortgage is $2.8k/moWould this be a bad investment because you would have to factor improvements and possible vacancy?

Looks like there are plenty of options.  1st of all this is for duplex’s only, 2ndly I can’t speak for Dallas but I know in the Kansas City area (where they were sued) 98 of commissions were between 2.5-3% and 94% of the time it was 3%. west coast did away with 3% bAC long ago.. by did away I mean the market went that way because we know commish is not fixed.. 6% became 5% some years back and 4% on higher end.. 

@Guy Keren most of the properties in those price points will either put you west or south Fort Worth and East or south of Dallas.

I currently have 3 renos going in Cleveland, and have two more closings this week, best part I'm in FL, Check out the mid-west, great returnsAll the best 

It was truly the wild west for a few years. 

I am looking to connect and pair up with investors who are interested in rebuilding a Oil booming town in west texas.

Being in West Palm Beach and always monitoring the South Florida market, nothing makes sense!

Yes, there does need to be some regulation in place so it doesn't turn into the "Wild West" of STRs. 

My advice would be to look at Sacramento city proper, as well as West Sacramento and Citrus Heights.