All Forum Posts by: Christine Newton

@David Thompson gave a great list of meetups that you can start with to start networking and learning about what is going on locally. Other than that...just start driving. When I was investing in single family, I would pick a neighborhood and go drive for dollars just like @Jarrod Weaver mentioned above. It's the best way to start to get to know the city, and don't forget the outlying cities as well!

Welcome @Jeremy Wilken

My husband and I live in North Austin, and have been investing for several years now. We started with single family and have since moved into the multi-family realm. 

I like that you are interested in some niches like tiny houses and building meaningful communities. I believe that there were some plans to construct a tiny house community out past the airport, but am not sure what happened with that. 

Make sure you check out some of the local meetups. They are the best way to get into real estate and find like-minded people!

Brandon is right. There are numerous investment meetups in the Austin area. You can find them all on the meetup website. Networking is a very important aspect to this business!

@Nathan Smith 

You can get the pre-foreclosure list from the Roddy Report Foreclosure Listing Service. It's a paid list that give you all of the pre-foreclosures for the upcoming auction. The names come out 21 days before the auction and you can purchase by county.

For tax delinquent lists and code violations you need to make a public information request with the county or city. 

Absentee landlord list can be purchasing through a listing service or if you have MLS access you can pull it through there!

Here are the meetups I recommend:

Investor Underground: Third Wednesday of the month at Abel's North. It starts at 6:30 and is geared towards flippers, buy and hold, and wholesalers. It's good networking. 

Multi-Family Investing: Every Tuesday at 11:45 at the Flying Saucer. This group is geared towards those that are investing in apartment complexes. Great networking. 

General Investing: Every Thursday at 11:30 at Big Daddy's. There are a wide variety of different types of investors at this meeting and the networking is great. 

Linda and Andrew Peterson also hold a meetup once a month (not sure which date) and also every Sunday where they bring a group of investors out to a house they are flipping. If you are looking to flip homes they are a great resource. You can find their meetups on Meetup.com and look for "Homes for the Win". 

There are many other meetups in the area! I don't have time to go to them all, so I can't comment on the others, but I'm sure there are some other great meetings going on out there!

Do you already own the property that is renting as an AirBnB?

There are private money lenders that generally lend at 2 points and 12%. There are also several companies that are popular among investors here in Austin. You can try Investmark Mortgage, Bay Mountain Capital, or Stallion.  Their rates will vary. 

If you attend the local area meetups you will meet a lot of people that are lending to investors. I have done private lending myself, at the 2 points and 12% with a 6 month loan term, but I am not looking to lend right now. If you send me a PM with details of what you are looking to do, I may be able to pass it on to someone else though. 

Hi @Eric Jones

My husband and I are real estate investors living in Austin. We have been investing for two years now. We started out with single family rentals and flips. This year we are selling off all of our single family rentals to move into multi-family investing. Your financial goals are very similar to ours!

We actually wish that we had gone straight to multi-family instead of playing around in the single family arena for two years. This year we have invested in two multi-family properties as passive investors. One is a 216 unit in San Antonio and the other is a 52 unit in Belton, TX. 

We would love to meet for coffee! Send me a pm. 

Hi @Susannah Calandruccio

Welcome to Bigger Pockets and Austin!

I moved here five years ago and love it. I've been doing real estate investing for the last three years, and it's been great. Definitely check out some of the meetups around town. It's the best way to network and get started in the business!

@Jason Behn

That meetup you mentioned is one of the best! A lot of the people that attend this one have quite a bit of experience, so it's a great meeting for learning and networking. My husband and I try to get to that one every week. I'm pretty sure that we are going to be there tomorrow, so if you decide to stop by, come find me! 

We are seeing a much higher ROI with multi-family properties than we were with our single families. We invest primarily for cash flow, and we just weren't getting what we wanted with single families. We did get quite a bit of appreciation on the single families, but we are conservative investors and don't like to bank on that.

With that being said, we know a couple of people here that will buy a property with hard money, rehab, and then refinance into a conventional loan. This enables them to pull our all or almost all of their money. They then rent it out and start looking for the next one. These properties are hard to find in the Austin area right now, but if you look hard enough, they are there!

@Jason Behn

You're thinking about the Austin market right now is pretty spot on. In my opinion, the surrounding areas are definitely a good place to be looking for rentals. Those areas are also pretty hot as far as the housing market goes, but you have a better chance of finding something there where the numbers will make sense. 

My husband and I have been investing for the last three years. We've held rental properties in Austin, Cedar Park and Garland. We are in the process of selling our last single family rental as we've moved in to multi-family rentals this year. 

We also do rehabs in these areas and then we use the profit from those to invest in more multi-family as we are also trying to grow our passive income. 

You should definitely try to attend some of the meetups in the area. It's a great way to meet other people doing the same thing in the Austin area!

Hi @Forrest Berkey and welcome to Bigger Pockets!

My husband and I are also real estate investors in Austin. We've owned several single family rentals in the metro area. We are actually in the process of selling our last rental as we are moving into multi-family instead. We also do rehabs.

If you are looking to buy a rental in the 175,000-225,000 range you may want to increase your parameters and start looking outside of central Austin. You might want to consider searching completely outside of Austin. Look into Round Rock, Leander, Cedar Park, Hutto, Georgetown, Manor, Lockhart, etc. 

Are you looking for a property that needs to be rehabbed first or something that is a bit more turn-key?

If you are absolutely set on central Austin then you might want to try sending out letters to homeowners looking for someone that needs to sell quickly. You can try the pre-foreclosure list, tax delinquent list or code violations. You can also try sending to absentee landlords. 

Definitely look into some of the meetups in the area. 

Let me know if you have any questions and good luck!