However, areas with the highest demand and lowest inventory experienced double-digit percent price jumps simultaneously coupled with declining sales activity.

I bet there's a hard money lender in your area who would look at it to give you short-term, bridge financing. 

@Eli SaldanaI recommend you start actively networking in local Houston events.

Again I'm also not a lawyer or offering legal advice, but this might be tough to execute because when you refinance a lender is going to want you to have 20-25% equity which you would not have unless you kept some of these loans active and even then most lenders will ask about private loans.

There aren't really any formulas for this, your best bet might be to look at the pictures in rental comps other than that I would estimate the difference to be about $100 in rent for every $1000 of rental value if everything in a non-updated unit is clean, usable and looks reasonably nice.

I currently have a few rentals in SoCal and have an active flip in Sun City AZ, just to give a quick snapshot of what I’m doing at the moment.

You'll have a lot of decisions to make.Who is passive and who is active?

We need upfront investment to start new active business at where we will be moving.

i would think finding a mentor, slightly out of the area may be a good move, so that you actually don't compete with each other but can actively and whole-heatedly bounce ideas off each other as well.

@Zasha SmithThe first question is that do you want to be passive or an active investor which is dictated by how much capital do you have to work with.