Latest Buy and Hold Rehab in Elgin, TX

[Gary Ennis]

OK, maybe it's not a success story yet, but it's well-positioned to be one eventually. 

Due to the difficulty of finding decent deals in Austin, my wife and I decided to look for a property in Elgin, TX. This was a calculated decision: Elgin is only 30 minutes from Austin, it's got a nice historic downtown, and there is a group that's planning to build the Elgin Agrarian Community, a 24-acre community of 80 green-built homes with a 5-acre CSA farm, jogging trails, a craft brewery, and a spa / events center. 

We wanted to find a property near the downtown area, within walking distance to the Elgin Agrarian site. We ended up getting the property right across the street - actually, right across the street from where the craft brewery will be. :)

That's the good news. The bad news is that, despite multiple hints at a groundbreaking, nothing has gone vertical yet. They have cleared the site for the farm and for a few roads. Fingers crossed that the project stays on track.

So for now, this is a path-of-progress play waiting for the progress. But it's certainly got its positives. We're in it for a little less than what it's worth (~$210K), we've got 30-year financing from a local bank, and it cash flows about $100/month. We got really positive feedback on the renovations from all the prospective tenants who toured the property, and our tenants recently told me "we're on cloud nine in this house." The house sits on one-half of a beautiful, flat, 0.50 acre lot, so we can always subdivide and have another 0.25 acre lot to build on or whatever. 

Before the renovation, it was a 1,456 sf 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, with an oversized attached garage, a clunky layout and a super-kludgey "master" bathroom. We didn't add any sf, but we did convert it into a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, with a huge master suite and master closet, and a huge open concept living/dining/kitchen area. Before/during/after photos are below. 

Another reason for this post is to let the BP community know that I haven't fallen off of the map. :) Got sucked back into the corporate world a couple years ago, and you know how that goes. Striving now to be more active on BP and in our RE investing. Got a deal you'd like to partner on? I'd love to hear about it.

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[Gary Ennis]

Originally posted by @David Ivy:

@Gary Ennis

Congrats and thanks for sharing! I've been casually following the Elgin Agrarian Community development, but I thought it was farther along than what you describe. I know that people have already put down money to live there. Have you heard anything about the timeline? There was a duplex across the street from the development site on the market several months ago that I almost offered on. 

Thanks, David! We've attended several of the meetings / open houses that they've had. As of mid-summer, they were saying that 13 of the planned 80 houses were spoken for, with deposits down and financing arranged. But since then, they've kind of gone dark. On their Facebook page, the latest posts are of a future residents' potluck dinner in July, and one of the principles of the development group speaking at a conference in September. 

Whoa - I just now checked their Facebook page to make sure I didn't miss anything, and there was a new post from 7 minutes ago (!) that reads as follows:

"Elgin Agrarian friends - My most heartfelt wishes go out to Osmo's Brewery who has decided to take pause and change course as they consider their future brewery plans. It has been great to have Osmo's part of our meetings and workshops and I sure was looking forward to having a brewpub I could walk to! We have some ideas of how the former brewery parcel could be used but we look forward to working with our future homebuyers in design charrettes in the New Year. We have other exciting news to share with you so keep posted!"