Where To Begin

Having come from a history of multiple careers spanning multiple decades, I am not the typical real estate investor. Due to previous issues plaguing either the broader or more local economies where I have lived, Michigan to Iowa to New Mexico and now the greater Austin area, I have had to ride several waves of much and little. 

I entered the real estate investing world reluctantly by opening up a "Make Ready" company we called Austin Houses 2 Homes, LLC. We were helping Realtors and their clients either prepare homes for sale or fix known issues after the new owners closed the sale. This brought with it many opportunities to learn how the various systems in a house actually work. 

Here is the greatest lesson I learned: There are many systems involved in even the simplest of houses. Over the years there have been many ways these systems were implemented and the technologies have come a long way since the knob and post days of wiring a house. 

This blog will discuss residential housing including the underbelly of the rehabbing world - foundation systems. We will cover many subjects that specifically affect the rehabbing investor. To be sure, there is money to be made in that business. But it is also necessary to firmly grasp that not all opportunities are winners. We will talk about those things from the point of view of the contractor and the investor.