I never would have thought I'd end up here (my wife's hometown), much less feel as good as I do about staying here for the long haul.  

My mom has been in the business for over 40 years and has told me several times that in general, the good tenants stay with the ones that take care of the property.

Marc, I hope people come forward with advice for you for the original question you asked, or that you find an advisor to guide you in the right direction. 

My question to you guys is do you think i should try and find a hard money lender for a fix and flip to start and can anyone recommend any, ill be relocating to the Dallas area soon so it will be somewhere in that area  Tashinga, unless you have a pretty solid construction background, I would recommend staying away from flipping until you get some experience. 

If the tenant is happy they will stay a little longer than the carpet would suggest "Just" because you accepted a pet.All of our leases says no pets.

There's even less of a guarantee that you will fail big than there is that you will succeed big, if you keep your wits about you, stay conservative in your estimates, and always look out for Murphy's Law.

Stay focused and right now in this market if you thinking about holding .

Keep in mind, I will need a place to stay so I technically could get two houses but that just sound so overwhelming at the moment...

That vision will help guide you through the entire process.

In your neighborhood, you don't want to have a vacancy very long, because things can tend to 'go missing'.If one tenant has sufficient income to qualify based on your standards, but the (probably) student with no social (BTW, get a copy of their visa for your records, and proof they are a full-time student) does NOT have provable income or background, the ONLY way to go is to get first, last and security.Since you are living there, you will have a better handle on the day-to-day, and you MUST stay on top of things.