You can buy in declining counties and purchase a property all cash that would meet you criteria.

I tried to get the complex leasing agent to help but they declined to help because it would be competing against themselves.

You're the boots on the ground so trust your gut about the area, potential growth/decline, your likely rental clientele, etc.One tip I would say is to see if your insurance company will write a policy based on market value rather than insuring it as though you're going to rebuild it.

(Full disclosure: my late husband, also with JK initials ironically, was the HOA president for years, but was in declining health and kept few records.  

These restrictions or overlays can make the lending experience more difficult especially when you're trying to acquire more properties as a RE investor.Lending is very similar to law or tax in that if you change the presentation of the facts you can literally go from a decline to an approval.Now back to your scenario above, I do have a HELOC up to about 90% of your primary home's value and we can use 75% of the rental income to qualify but you cannot own more than 7 financed residential properties total (6 non owners + 1 primary). 

I will have a month or two to source a deal and I know the Dallas market has really run up (40% increases in past 3 years), should I just wait it out and travel back to Dallas once the market has declined to look for an investment?

With oil prices on the decline I would expect to see some of that growth slowing in the oil producing areas. 

It has not declined but appreciation is something that I can not factor into the equation.

If you 2nd year income declines you may see issues also.

II offered almost double of assessed value and he felt it would make a big loss of value on his house, I offered to do a deeded access for him and he declined that also..