It is ideally suited for fix and flips and BRRRR where you can take advantage of cycling the money without having to ask someone to borrow it.

If you have fair credit, verifiable rental history and consistent income you can easily secure FHA financing in Houston and the inner city is the ideal place to house hack because of it's proximity to all the cool and trendy places downtown along with the major universities and Med Center.

So I tried that game but its a hard game to play so if you are going after the pre-auction folks, you have to work to find them and get them to talk to you. 

The 51% occupancy requirement is not ideal.

If you play the game right, you can, in fact, do this at least twice. 

Ideally, I'd like to seller-finance one or two of his properties to start but am open to private money or other alternative exit strategies.

Ideally I want a decent location not too far from the loop.

To @Todd Dexheimer 's  point - CIII Capital and Wells Fargo's capital markets group are the only CMBS conduits who are playing in the sub $3mm space right now. 

I'd say there's great opportunities in every market however if you're not educated on how to play at this point in the cycle you should sit on your dry powder for a while.There's a lot of dumb money in the market that will get transferred in the next correction. :)

I'd much rather go to the casino and play craps because I can only lose what is in my wallet.