It depends on how large of deals you are pursuing. 5-50 unit deals are the sweet spot to working with owners directly.

While I'm aware that Pit Bulls (and Rottweilers and Dobermans and other restricted breeds) can be and usually are very sweet dogs and good pets. 

Lot of contractors will take their sweet time without supervision, unfortunately.

Sweet!

You mentioned that you are less concerned with cash flow right now, and that signals to me that you are probably better off finding the sweet spot for you with leverage.I would leverage and take on extra risk now while you are young and able to make great money, and maybe 20 years down the line, switch things up and start pushing to pay these properties off early.

If you want to flip then yearly appreciation rates should not matter much, as that will be a short term investment anyways, you are going to hold that property for max 6 months, all you need is a sweet deal below MV where you are pour your love into it make it look nice and sell it for the MV or little over the current MV2.

Whether that's how far away from downtown Dallas, (Denton, Frisco, Lewisville, Murphy, Sachse) or your price range, (200,000-300,000 is your sweet zone for duplexes in North Dallas)Im looking for the same kind of deal and those are really hard to find. (200,000 under duplex)

I would never recommend buying a property with negative cash flow from the outset, but if your goals are mortgage paydown and capital appreciation over the long term, you don't necessarily need a ton of positive cash flow.That said, $150-200k is probably the sweet spot as far as purchase price for this strategy.

Her accent is minimal and she's very sweet on the phone. 

I will try my hardest to keep this post short and sweet.