All Forum Posts by: Brian Foster

No multifamily but single family rehabs and new construction. Houston is a great market for turnkey,

Message me if you would like more info.

Thanks

Trudy, we like the North Side of Houston and we like B Neighborhoods for their rent/value ratios. Best returns for investors that are also going to give you reasonable appreciation. Pull out you Houston map and start looking north of I10 and in between Beltway 8 (Sam Houston Toll Road) and the new Grand Parkway (Route 99). This will put you in places like: Katy, Cypress, Tomball, Spring, Humble, Huffman.

Check out the Greater Houston Partnership's website for some great information on the economy and demographics too.

Agree with Alain Rouhana, be very cautious with low priced properties in a turnkey environment. Prefer >$100k to <$180k and that is available in Houston. I like Dallas, I love Houston for investing. Economic news coming out of Houston is very positive for investors and i think gives it a slight advantage. Brookings Institute studied it and says it's the 2nd highest economic growth area (behind only San Jose) in the Nation. And we don't have enough SFH to meet the demand. Houston inventory is currently only 3.5 months (according to MLS) and we broke a 2 year old record for home sales in 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFyIjP0TAOs

I have one issue with takeaways from meeting. point #1 balanced inventory? We are not even close to a balanced (6 month inventory) according to HAR (Houston Association of Realtors) has us at 3.5 months inventory (Feb Report)

https://www.har.com/content/mls

Houston remains a sellers market for now

Look in "B" areas like Spring, Tomball, Cypress, Humble, Katy, Huffman. Prefer North of I10 (slightly lower insurance). Look for rent to value of 1% ($100,000 ARV that rents for $1,000mnth). This has worked for the last 25 years ;-)

Grand Parkway is a game changer, will be the next Beltway 8 (Sam Houston toll road)

@Craig Bell

Yes we have higher property taxes that are the burden of the investor. They are typically in the 2.5% to 3.0% range. That freaks some investors out. Perhaps it should not.

The lack of a state income tax is one of the main reasons (along with job growth) that is driving population growth (year after year) and providing investors with a growing pool of renters. Investors pass along higher taxes in the form of rent increases. The renters ultimately pay the property tax. And the tenants utilize the schools and other services that the taxes pay for.

And all with positive cash flows and returns in the 6% to 8% range. And Houston property is appreciating in value at a very healthy rate (we may approach double digits this year)  and has for the last couple of decades.

The original post was about investing in turnkey in either Ohio or Illinois and I just think if you look past TX and, Houston in particular, you are doing yourself a big disservice.

I'm also not a big fan of really cheap turnkey properties because they tend to be in challenging areas when it comes to Property Management. But that is a different subject.

My only question is why are you not considering TX? Houston was recently shown to be #2 in Economic growth (only behind San Jose) by the Brookings institute. Combine that with one of the lowest cost of living in the country and you've got a recipe for investors that is hard to replicate anywhere else. We have so many people moving here to fill jobs being created and no where near enough single family homes to keep up with the demand. Feb numbers showed us with 3.5 months of inventory on the books, it's still a very strong rental market here in Houston.

http://www.houston.org/pdf/research/quickview/Econ...

Houston finished the year with 3,036,000 jobs, the highest level of employment in Houston’s history.

With oil around $50/barrel for the entire year.

Mom, used to say "A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step". Welcome to BP and REI. Great topic with so many moving parts. You could study it your entire life and never stop learning new things.

Our company is branching out into New Construction too. It seems like a really good time for that here in the Houston area. We do not have enough single family homes in Houston to meet the demand being created by people moving here to fill all the jobs being created by our growing economy.