Anyone here have a couple of rent houses in Houston and can answer some questions?

[marksmu]

My family has several. Prices are high right now, and rents are somewhat depressed due to apartments being overbuilt.

Rental homes in my opinion are now basically just targeting the best schools. I would not buy a rental in an area, where there is not competition to get into the best schools. The reason is b/c if the applicant just wants a place to be, the apartments are giving 1-3 months free....you can't compete and win with that return rate. The apartments don't mind as much b.c they have multiple units, at all different rates depending upon when a tenant moved in. You have one tenant...one payment.

[Failed Engineer]

To buy now, you have to intimately know the area, the schools, the comps, the rent demand, and ideally already have a source of potential tenants outside of traditional marketing. It's not easy to find a cash flowing property without all of that in today's environment.

I focus only in areas I know very well already even if something looks good elsewhere in the city because if one thing goes wrong, it can easily become a bad deal. Today's market is fraught with risk even for people with mutliple properties already, let alone a newbie.

I thinking flipping in the right areas is probably easier these days, but again you really need to know what you are doing there too.

As far as apartments depressing rent, I know that is a factor in many parts of the city, but there are also places where there are no good nice apartments but plenty of single family housing. Those are places to look first.