All Forum Posts by: Beau Fannon

Is this a personal home or investment? 

The room elevation doesn't really impact the rentability of a property. Did you even notice the elevation issue prior to notification? 

Tree removal and sewer line repair are part of hardening an investment property. However, if the root isn't causing backups, it's not an immediate repair priority for an investment property. Can you flush half a roll of toilet paper down all of the toilets at the same time and not cause a backup? 

You need to take some time and read the last 100 discussions on the Austin forum. 

Every HOA is different. Many publish their rules and regulations on their website. You are going to have to learn to work with HOAs no matter what city you invest in.

My experience with HOAs has been pretty good. I make small incremental changes over a moderate amount of time and they don't seem to notice. Now if I wanted to move my driveway and add another story on to my house, I'm sure they'd get involved.

You'll need to check the HOA bylaws and amendments to see if they have a cap on rentals or prohibit Airbnb. That's standard work any real estate agent should help you with.

I wouldn't call it easy but the process is fairly straightforward. Currently there are 56 duplexes for sale across Travis and Williamson counties. Do you have a 25% down payment saved and which lender are you working with? 

The Austin residential real estate market is shrugging off the global pandemic and historic rise in unemployment like Jay-Z brushed off his shoulders in 2003.  Here's the breakdown...

The biggest news of the week is the continuing acceleration in Pendings. This is good and bad. The good news is the number of offers are increasing. The bad news is pending times seem to be creeping upward. The first half of April saw pendings in the 700s. The second half of April has seen them leap up above 1000. Unfortunately, solds moved slightly out of their established range 600-800 falling to 595 at the moment the data was gathered. This could just be an effect of my report timing.

Residential sales might beat April 2019. Back then we sold about 3315 units. So far we have closed on 1928 units in April 2020 and we have almost 2200 units pending. It will come down to how fast closings can be processed with a limited workforce in place.

New listings are up week-over-week by about 8%. Price decreases are holding steady in a range between 500-600 units per week. Price increases are holding steady within their range of 100-200 units per week as well. BOMs are holding steady in their established weekly range of 200-250. This indicates we have not yet seen a large swell in unqualified buyers. Withdrawn listings are holding within their established weekly range. The second most exciting news this week is that new TOMs continue to decrease. Total TOMs on the MLS have also started to decrease. Since price decreases aren't accelerating, inventory is fairly healthy, and the number of unqualified buyers doesn't seem to be increasing yet, I'm not forecasting any pending price decreases in the near future. In fact, prices may continue to appreciate. Let's see if the leasing market can give us any guidance.

Leases signed in April 2019 totaled 2222. Currently we have signed 1439 leases signed in April 2020 and we have 995 leases pending. All metrics in the leasing market are holding within established weekly ranges.  April 2020 is shaping up to be a very solid month for the Austin real estate market. 

How are things going for your business here in Austin?

You found a lender that will treat a duplex as a second home...

It really burns me to agree with Joe about anything but he's not wrong.  You need a better class of 'agent' and 'lender'.  You also need 25% down saved up for a $365,000 duplex if you want to modestly cash flow after property management fees.  

Rents are starting to creep down.  For the past several weeks we've been averaging rent reductions on about 10% of available lease inventory every week.  This goes counter to historical seasonality. I don't know if it's possible for you to get your down payment up in time, but I'm forecasting that some good multi-family deals will hit the market in Q4 2020.  Rents will rebound but goods deals are far and few between.

You missed a lot of line items that accompany home ownership and hosting roommates.  But that shouldn't dissuade you from moving forward.  You are taking the right steps and you'll learn along the way.  I would encourage you to broaden your search area as there aren't many sub $300k 4/3 options in your highlighted area. 

@Christopher Moloney listen to @Nina Hayden and continue to educate yourself.

At the same time, start working with a local lender to get pre-qualified. Austin has many excellent providers and I'd be happy to introduce you a couple to them. They'll be able to give you a far more realistic view of what you can afford and what this will cost you. Pre-qualification helps to eliminate the speculation and narrow your focus. This is the next step.

With all do respect, your net is too big and your bait is too small. There's only 3 sub $300k duplexes in the Williamson, Travis, and Hays counties right now. They don't generate the cash flow you're looking for. 

Every town you mentioned is an unpleasant commute from Downtown. Easily 45 minutes in rush hour. 

The option that suits your budget depends on how much you have for the down payment. The bigger your down payment the more you'll cash flow. What's your down payment?

April 23, 2020

Austin isn't slowing down. This market continues to defy national news headlines. Let's jump straight into the weekly numbers.

Residential sales have accelerated during the third week of April. Pending sales jumped by 313 homes! Even removing the 50 or so suspect pendings marked by builders, that's a net 263 jump in pending deals! Finalized home sales jumped 150 over last week! Our temporary off markets have also decreased. If this bump holds into next week, Austin has a very good chance of meeting or even exceeding our April 2019 home sales. It's going to come down to how fast can we close deals in the current economic climate.

Considering the massive imbalance between listings and pendings, it's safe to say that we are experiencing an inventory reduction. If inventory falls and the number of qualified buyers stays the same, prices will rise.

We'll need to watch for the number of back on markets (BOMs) to climb to know if we are having closing issues with unqualified buyers like they claim on the news. Since I am unaware of a reliable way to search for prior year BOMs, we'll have to wait and see what the weekly benchmark should be.

Sub $300k homes made up 39.3% of new listings, 43.3% of the BOMs, 46.2% of pendings, and 46.5% of this week's solds.

Luxury listings exceeding $850k made up 8.1% of new listings, 8.9% of BOMs, 4.1% of pendings, and 4.9% of this week's solds.

Leasing is looking marginally better than last week as it should considering where we are in the monthly cycle. Next week is the last week of the month and we should see a significant bump in these numbers. April 2019 had about 1900 leases signed. We are currently on track to meet or exceed that number.

Multi-family is tight as always. I don't expect big movements here until year end. Q4 2020 will tell us more about the state of our fellow investors as they prepare for tax season.

Austin Area Market Stats for April 16 to April 23 2020