Soils could be different than what you expect at shallow rooting depths as well due to trucked in fill material, so look at that.

As long as big named companies and Californians continue to feed into Austin and home prices continue to appreciate 5%+ year over year, you can't look at that and not have excitement to plant roots in one of these gentrifying areas around the city. 

How do you prevent from piercing the corporate viel if you aim to deduct expenses that have come from your personal credit card (home office, travel..etc)

Many tenants will act (pay) to prevent an eviction filing since even a dismissed eviction can hurt your credit and make it difficult to rent another apartment.

The most important thing to do is make sure to buy at the right price and maintain sufficient reserves to do preventative maintenance. 

Or should capital always be my first priority to prevent people from taking advantage of me?

Go over exactly what frustrated and drained you the most, and think about what you could do to prevent it next time.

You may want to consider the near South Side versus the far southside.Regarding getting taking advantage of, where a property is located won't prevent getting taken advantage of.

This actually aids in preventing fraud vs the mortgage system.  

What are others doing to prevent them from freezing?