Texas is a great state to hang up your license and with property values increasing and rates on the edge of a breaking point. 

There are some pretty good products out there available for investments, where you can do seller paid temporary rate buydowns.

Every dollar into this project is borrowed at various interest rates.

We have a crystal clear conversation about this at the lease signing.To show I am not a grinch - part of my agreement with folks is that every 13th month I discount their rent by 10% to recognize their on-time payments.

It's allowed me to do some of my own work like changing toilets and fixing leaking ceilings, but even if I don't want to do a job personally hopefully I'll have enough knowledge to not let a contractor over charge me, or recommend something I don't need.You'll also meet local contractors, and hopefully investors.They may offer an employee discount too.

Sure you can sell it and take that cash and put it into something that you can manage yourself, but with an interest rate as low as you have it for, I would not.

Chances are you'll want to refi in a few years anyway once rates fall.

The seller is paying 20k in mortgage interest, given the current interest rates I would need to 45kish in mortgage interest for the said STR.

There are plenty of lenders that don't require experience to lend, but leverage/rate might be altered a bit.

I keep wondering about insurance, vacancy rates, if tenant selection is a bigger/ different factor, terms of the tenancy and differences in opex and capex?