I'm studying for my RE license in Minnesota and have a background in sales. 

Check to see if you can study while out of state so when you get to Texas you can take the exam straight away ( so you have to time it accordingly) Plus if your husband is in the military check to see if his salary alone would be sufficient to buy your first property while you build up 2 yrs of tax returns.

I have been studying some of Walter Woffords material on structuring private money for the purchase and renovation and then wrapping the private money and seller financing to the end buyer. 

I did a lot of study including reading Mike Butler's Book - Landlording on Autopilot (highly recommend it).

From studying your listing photos, it may be a similar situation. 

Then you're basically studying the comps in the area to see what your property once fixed up could likely sell for.

I would study the MLS if you have access to that, play around with that to see what houses are selling for in different neighborhoods.

When studying long term trends of an area, what metrics should I use to determine if an area is being over or under built and where can I find these metrics?

I like to study my local zipcodes of the income reports.

I’m aspiring to be a developer, looking to study each line and run numbers.