This is the essence of mortgage planning, planning for your income today, where your credit and assets are, and how to get the new acquisition.There are ways to know now so that you’ll be prepared to deal confidently with a seller when the time comes. 

Save up so you're financially prepared.

I am hoping that the last two weeks has been enough time to finished up the house and prepare it for a Zillow/Craigslist.  

I'd love to connect with anyone in the Houston area to discuss any business/real estate opportunities or learn more about how I can better prepare for real estate. 

Rental inspections have gotten tougher so be prepared for higher repair costs.

Paying bills, organizing files and preparing taxes are not part of the hours required as these are "investor activities"?

I've found a motivated seller and am trying to get this first deal done but I want to have general contracts prepared before I go any further.  

This entails building personal / working relationships with people successful in the field.

I am now putting the house up for sale.1) When talking with new tax preparer (too many mistakes with previous preparer) he reviewed prior tax records and stated the following:  On my previous taxes the preparer listed the value of the home in 2010 as 95K.

Although it's a strategy that's good for beginners, there are plenty of very experienced RE investors who continue to HH.Plus, if you do decide to do one of the other strategies in the future (such as BRRR'ing or out of state investing), you'll be much more prepared to do it if you have a HH or two under your belt--a ton of the lessons you'll learn from a HH can be used to successfully execute an out of state investment/BRRR/etc.!