Investment property (Dallas, Plano, Bryan: low income, real estate, apartments)

[Pintea]

We moved here just about a year ago, and chose to live in the suburbs. I love living in the city, but Dallas seemed just to hard to figure out.
I am not giving up on Dallas just yet. So I thought we could look for an apartment or a townhouse, which we will rent out for now. It has to be less than 150k, 100 - ideally! Oh yes, and I would prefer three bedrooms over two... Picky, right?
How difficult is it to rent out a two or three bedroom condo or townhouse? It seems that everyone here prefers living in a house. Will I even find tenants? I see "for rent" signs everywhere!
I don't even know Dallas. We drove around the "M" streets area, and Lakewood (I think that's what it was!) Are there any other worthy areas? I'm thinking we could get a little adventurous.

[Pintea]

Is it really impossible?

[hamiltonpl]

$150k is a pretty tough budget in the inner city. When I was looking a couple years ago, anything that wasn't over $200k was ghetto. I'd imagine it is $250k to $300k now.

I'd check out Oak Lawn and Bryan Place. Both have plenty of townhomes. Additionally, there are some new buildings going up in Uptown and Downtown.

[lh_newbie]

I believe in that range you can get into Live Oak Lofts, but I don't think they have 3 bedrooms - one and two are what I'm aware of. One cool thing about LOL... there is quite a bit of construction that will be annoying for a while, but once done, the DART rail will have a station right there!

There's talk about the City Lights project, which would be a mixed use (retail/residential) if they move forward with the project. The city council should be receiving more information from the developer in August, so stay tuned to that.

If City Lights does break ground - the combo of DART and City Lights will certainly make LOL a very desirable location. If you're looking at an investment timeframe of 3+ years, this could make your short list.

Brian

[Pintea]

Thank you. I am looking for long term investment, and I don't necessarily want new construction. So I am open to less desireable areas... to a point! I will settle for two bedrooms if I can't manage three.
This is all great info, now I have some homework to do!

[Pintea]

I found some 30k apartments, so I guess that made me think that 100k to 150 would be decent.

[cdelena]

You will have to be diligent looking and quick once one hits the market to find anything close in at that price. Even in this market I recently sold a 2BR 30 year old condo for over 200K.

There is no problem renting units out but it is difficult making money at it unless you get an area with good appreciation. The inventory of new homes in the DFW area stays high enough to insure there is no supply crunch and taxes and other expenses keep ownership costs pretty high.

[KantLockeMeIn]

The words, real estate investment, and Dallas intrigue me. Assuming a 150k investment, if you were to pay cash, your monthly insurance and taxes would roughly $470. How much is rent going for? Do many people rent when owning around here is so affordable?

[FarNorthDallas]

I did a search for 3 bedroom townhome/condo in Dallas in the 100-125 range on ebby and what I got were not great neighborhoods. You could possibly rent them out though to low income folks. The neighborhoods were near the bad Spring Valley Coit area that are part of a mandatory HOA, the bad areas off Greenville, Harvest Hill, of course, and the funky little area off Royal with those tiny Victorian looking places and I can't remember where else.

[socketz]

Originally Posted by twojciac

The words, real estate investment, and Dallas intrigue me. Assuming a 150k investment, if you were to pay cash, your monthly insurance and taxes would roughly $470. How much is rent going for? Do many people rent when owning around here is so affordable?

Nice residential rentals under $2300 per month go quick where I'm located in West Plano. The problem is if you buy with 10-20% down in these areas, the P+I is still 100-200 dollars higher than the rent you can get.