All Forum Posts by: Alvin Bittner

Thank you for the thoughtful and generous input.

It's good to read how you're personally thinking about real estate investing.

From my naive viewpoint there's way too much new construction (small & large builders) active nearby to think there isn't something very valuable here. It's difficult to believe all those developers are doing the work at a loss.

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Do nothing or Flip land

(aka just sell the property) ---

Somehow it seems there's far more potential here than just selling unimproved land. It would be quite disheartening to have to give all that value away just because I'm too stupid to figure how to transition it into money.

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Build-4-rent ---

Building and renting a small subdivision of 2500-3000 sq ft single family homes on 1/5th to quarter acre lots is what I originally asked about and what I'd prefer to do. Based on the last round of discussion this got a enough support to look further into it. It also took enough hard knocks to warrant extra caution.

Maybe it just needs to be adjusted a little into double-decker tiny homes or ADUs or something like that.

What things might be done to the standard single family home to cause it to better fit the build-4-rent strategy?

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Higher Rent Properties ---

The neighborhood is around B++.

I not aware of anything about the area making it extra special which would allow unusually high rents.

Even though there must be one; I don't know what structure or feature (other than a community pool) could be built on the property to dramatically enhance rental rates.

Other than a pool; what type of feature/structure or activity do you use or know of which usually has the effect of significantly increasing rents?

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Small Apartment complex ---

The door is wide open to other strategies if there's a profitable way to transition them from idea into reality.

What characteristics about small apartment complexes seem to make them fit in this scenario?

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In general; something with solid financial numbers has to fit this particular situation. Just am searching for what that strategy is.

Again; thank you for the input. It's helpful.

Alvin

This would be my first venture into real estate so I'm not sure how to go about figuring out if this will work.

I would like to build new houses to rent.
I'm unable to do any of the labor and quite a bit short on cash.

However; I have 4 acres of unimproved land in an unincorporated part of a north east suburb in the Dallas area.

2000 sq ft houses sell for around $190 sq ft and rent between say $1700-2300.

In addition to building the actual houses it seems like this would require a lot of other large expenses for example a road (possibly gravel), electricity, water, septic systems, fiber, and cable services installed.

I get the impression, if this was a financially viable strategy there'd be more talk on Bigger Pockets about it. 

When does building new houses to rent even make financial sense?

Where to go to learn more about doing this?

What's your opinion on new builds to rent?