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Since September 1, 2025, SB 1333 (Texas Property Code Chapter 24B) lets you file a sworn complaint with the sheriff or constable. After the officer confirms you own the home, they serve a notice to vacate immediately and put you back in possession. No eviction trial is needed. What is the squatter law in Texas now? Before SB 1333, most DFW owners had to treat a squatter like a tenant. That meant a notice to vacate, a case in justice court, a possible appeal, and a writ of pos

To winterize a rental property in Texas, do four things before late November: service the heater, insulate exposed pipes and outdoor faucets, shut off and drain the sprinkler system, and give your tenant a written freeze plan. Make sure they know where the main water shut-off is. Vacant homes need extra steps: keep the heat on or drain the lines. Most of the year, North Texas landlords worry about heat and we know it's still 90's in September at the time of this blog post. Bu

You closed on a rental in Richardson, Plano, or Frisco. Maybe you inherited a house in Garland. You live in California, Colorado, Florida, or somewhere else across the country. Now you own rental property in North Texas, and the asset is 1,500 miles away. That can be a strong position. Dallas-Fort Worth continues to attract renters, employers, and investors. But distance changes the work. A small maintenance issue can become a tenant relationship problem. A missed legal deadl

Your family just lost someone. Now you're looking at a house you weren't planning to own — maybe a childhood home in Garland, maybe a rental your parents held for twenty years in Mesquite. Either way, you're being asked to make a big financial decision while you're still processing a loss. That's a hard spot to be in. This post gives you a clear look at your real options: the tax reality most people get wrong, what the DFW market actually looks like right now, and the honest

August is one of the busiest moving months in North Texas. New hires starting jobs in Plano and Frisco, families relocating from out of state, and college grads settling into their first real apartment — all of them are searching the same DFW market at the same time. The good news: 2026 is actually a solid year to be a first-time renter in DFW. Rents have pulled back from their 2023–2024 peaks, and landlords are offering concessions — free first month, reduced deposits, upgr

Texas landlord AC requirements carry real teeth — from state law to Dallas city code. Here's what DFW rental owners must know when the AC goes out in July.

Self-managing a rental property saves the management fee, which runs about 8–12% of rent in Dallas-Fort Worth. It works best if you own one home nearby and have flexible time. A property manager usually pays off when you live far away, work full-time, own several doors, or can't afford a costly legal mistake. It's 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, and your tenant just texted about a leaking water heater. You're scrolling through old vendor numbers, hoping someone picks up. If that sounds

Nobody gets into the rental business hoping to evict someone. But if you own property in Dallas-Fort Worth long enough, you'll probably need to know how the Texas eviction process actually works. Skip a step and you could lose the case, or end up on the wrong end of a lawsuit yourself. Here's a plain-English walkthrough of how landlords in Texas legally remove a tenant, step by step. What Can Start an Eviction in Texas Most evictions come down to one of a few reasons: The te

Addison, Texas doesn't look like a rental investor's paradise on paper. It's 4.4 square miles. The population sits under 18,000. You could drive through it without realizing you'd crossed city limits. And yet 82% of households here are renter-occupied. That's one of the highest renter rates in all of North Texas — and it's not an accident. Why Renters Keep Choosing Addison The draw is lifestyle at a price that still makes sense. Addison squeezes more than 200 restaurants in

The Texas eviction process has four steps: written notice, an eviction suit in the property's justice court, a trial 10 to 21 days after filing, and a writ of possession no sooner than the sixth day after judgment. Senate Bill 38 changed several rules for cases filed on or after January 1, 2026. What changed in the Texas eviction process in 2026? Senate Bill 38 passed in 2025 and applies to eviction suits filed on or after January 1, 2026 (read the enrolled bill). Earlier ver

Most North Texas landlords who ask this question are thinking about one number: the monthly management percentage. It makes sense — that's the number companies put on their websites. But that percentage only tells part of the story. By the time you add leasing fees, renewal fees, and setup costs, your first year looks a lot different than that headline rate suggests. Here's what you actually need to know. The Monthly Management Fee This is the core fee — what you pay every m

If you've been watching DFW rental market headlines lately, you've seen the numbers. Rents down roughly 6%. Days on market at 35. Over half of all listings offering concessions just to fill vacancies. It's enough to make any landlord pause. But here's what those headlines miss: they're reading the blended metro average. And for property owners in North Texas, the blended average doesn't tell the real story. Here's what DFW rental investment in 2026 actually looks like — and

You've probably seen the headlines: rents are falling in Dallas-Fort Worth. And if you own an apartment, that's largely true — the metro absorbed a huge wave of new multifamily supply, and the data shows it. But if you own a single-family home? The picture is different. Single-family rental rents in DFW climbed roughly 4.6% to a median around $2,195/month in Q1 2026. The tenants who want a house with a yard in a good school district in Plano or Allen aren't swapping it for

May is when the DFW rental market wakes up. Families lock down their next home before school registration closes. Out-of-state job transfers hit the ground. Lease endings stack up across Plano, McKinney, Frisco, and Allen. If your property is available right now, you're sitting in the best leasing window of the year. But peak season doesn't lease a property by itself. Single-family homes in DFW averaged 35 days on the market in early 2026. Some landlords fill in 10. Others a

About 15 miles north of downtown Dallas, Richardson doesn't get the same headlines as Frisco or McKinney. But ask landlords who've owned there for five years — they tend not to sell. The Telecom Corridor keeps the tenant pool employed and stable. The schools keep families planted. And the housing stock, while older, gives investors a clear picture of what they're getting into. Here's what the Richardson, TX rental market actually looks like in 2026. The tenant base is the s

Get the security deposit wrong in Texas and your tenant can sue you for three times what you withheld — plus $100 and their attorney's fees. Most landlords don't know that going in. By the time they find out, it's expensive. Here's what the law requires, what changed in 2025, and how to stay on the right side of it. There's no cap — but there is real downside risk Texas sets no maximum security deposit amount. You can charge one month's rent, two months', or more — whatever y

If you own a rental property in Dallas-Fort Worth, there's one thing you can count on every year: summer is coming — and it is not gentle. By mid-June, temperatures in Plano, Frisco, McKinney, and across the DFW metroplex regularly push past 100°F. When your tenant's AC fails in that heat, it's not just uncomfortable — under Texas law, it becomes a habitability emergency you're required to fix fast. The good news? A little spring HVAC maintenance for your North Texas rental p

Every spring, North Texas landlords face the same decision: get ahead of maintenance now, or pay emergency rates in July when temperatures hit 108°F and an AC failure becomes a legal habitability issue under the Texas Property Code. The math is not complicated. A preventive HVAC tune-up runs $80–$150. An emergency AC replacement in the middle of a DFW summer can cost $4,000–$8,000 — plus potential liability if the unit fails while a tenant is in the property. Spring is the hi

Pricing your rental property is one of the most important decisions you'll make as an investor. Set it too high, and your property sits vacant while the bills keep coming. Set it too low, and you quietly lose thousands of dollars over the life of a lease. In a market as dynamic as Dallas-Fort Worth, getting rental pricing right from the start is the difference between a performing investment and a frustrating one. Here's what our team has learned from managing rental propert

U-Haul just released it's annual Growth Index report, and it has some exciting news for our area. Dallas-Fort Worth came in #1 as the fastest-growing metro in the whole United States for 2025. That means more people moved to our region than left it last year. What Is the U-Haul Growth Index? Every year, U-Haul looks at millions of one-way truck, trailer, and moving-container rentals. They count how many people rented moving equipment in one city and dropped it off in anoth