r/RentalInvesting

My wife and I (early 30s, a toddler, and a newborn) own a house in Round Rock, TX. We want to move to Georgetown, TX (a bit farther north) sometime in the next few years, but I need help determining the best next step.

(My wife's entire family lives in Georgetown, about 30 minutes north of our current house, and we want our kids to grow up near them.)

Ultimately, I'd love to own a portfolio of single-family rentals.

Some background on our current situation:

• 2025 household AGI was $186k. I am self-employed (about $15k/month in revenue, before business expenses/taxes). My wife earns $65k gross on a W-2.
• We have a $50k emergency fund and about $180k in retirement accounts.
• After all of our typical expenses (mortgage, childcare, etc.), we usually have about $3k available to invest (which has, to date, largely been going to Roth IRAs and a SEP IRA).

Current House (Round Rock)

• Bought in 2021. We owe about $330k at 2.75%.
• It is worth about $350k today, which is below what we paid ($416k - Austin's housing market has really contracted). If we sell now, it's probably a wash after agent fees and closing costs.
• The payment is about $2,100/month, including taxes and insurance.
• I expect the house would rent for $2,000-2,100/mo today, which should cover most ongoing expenses except maintenance, I think.

THE KICKER: My in-laws recently gave us $65k toward a down payment, but we can only use it if we buy in Georgetown. (They didn't give us a particular timeline, though, and would be fine with us waiting a few years if we wanted.)

The Three Options (as I see them)

• Buy in Georgetown now and keep Round Rock as a rental.
• Buy in Georgetown now and sell Round Rock to avoid two mortgages.
• Stay in Round Rock for now and look to buy in Georgetown in a few years.

What should we do? Our current house was our first house, so I feel a bit paralyzed by the options.

This may sound crazy, but we’re starting to change our investing model.

I’ve been investing for about 10 years and we buy roughly 50–60 properties a year. (****WE ARE LOCAL AND BUY MOSTLY BLIGHTED/FIXER-UPPER/FIRE/ABANDONED/TEAR-DOWN PROPERTIES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN IN SERVICE FOR YEARS AND NO ONE WANTS.....WE ARE NOT A PREDATORY HEDGE FUNDS THAT IS DRIVING UP PRICES SO PLEASE NO HATE COMMENTS!)

From 2017–2021, we kept about 2/3 of our purchases as rentals and flipped the rest. Then the model shifted, and we started selling roughly 95% of what we bought.

Now… we’re starting to hold again. The rent-to-price ratio on new purchases is the best I’ve seen in my career. Rates are obviously higher, but the rent/price seems to justify taking out debt and holding.

A typical deal for us right now looks something like:

• $130k all-in basis
• $1,500/month rent
• ~7% debt

It seems like that still works pretty well as a rental even with high rates.

The way I see it, there are basically two ways this plays out:

1. Rates stay high → rents continue to increase over time.
2. Rates eventually come down → home values probably benefit, and we can refinance or sell at a premium.

The alternative is flipping the house, making maybe $15k, and paying ordinary income tax on the gain.

I’m starting to like the rental strategy a lot more.

For comparison, before this shift in the market, a $130k investment might have rented for around $1,250. Rates were lower, but the rent-to-price ratio was significantly worse.

what everyone else is seeing? I feel like there may be a pretty significant shift happening in the rental market, and we’re trying to get ahead of it.

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask this or not.
Husband and I have a home that we’ve had on thr market for 6 months. We’ve received 3 offers. First was too low, second the buyers needed to sell first and couldn’t (we gave them 30 days to find a buyer but they never did), and third which is what we’re dealing with now. We’ve been in escrow for over 60 days, waiting on buyer to get financials sorted out, and we keep being told “probably by the end of this week.” We’re getting frustrated as we’ve already basically moved out of our home but are still paying a house payment and staying here to do basic upkeep.
We’ve have purchased property and are starting to build a new home (we purchased it outright but need a construction loan for the house). The plan was obviously sell this one first, then build.
For a bit of context- we have a $79,000 balance with 3.75% rate on current home, with the mortgage payment being $1000 monthly. Due to always paying more, we have just over 7 years left on this mortgage if we continue to pay the minimum, 6 years if we pay a little extra monthly. New
Home is estimated to cost about $425,000 to build.
BUT we are now trying to decide what the best way to move forward is. If we wait for the buyers situation to get sorted out, which we have no way of knowing how long it will take, we are essentially losing money because we’re paying a house payment for an empty house. We’ll get principal back but not interest. So here are our options:
1- continue to wait and hope the deal closes soon and sell house. Our profit would be about $440,000 which we would then apply about $200,000 to the new build and mortgage the rest
2- keep the current house, rent it for $2500/month (which is an about average amount for our area, there are definitely some that are higher) and put all of that toward the mortgage, which would mean paying it off an owning outright in less than 3 years. We would then have to mortgage the new house 100% which we’ve been told is doable because we use the value of the land ($240,000) as instant equity which requires no cash down payment. Then after first house is paid off within 3 years, we use that rental income to pay new mortgage.
3- keep the current house, rent it for $2500/month, continue paying the $1000 mortgage and using the extra $1500 to supplement our new mortgage payment for new house

What are we missing here? We’ve never been landlords before but also feel like we’re in a potentially lucrative situation to be able to keep the home we have and use it as passive income. But we don’t want to be naive about the risks involved with maintaining a rental house.