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All Forum Posts by: Claudio Garcia Zuniga

Claudio Garcia Zuniga has started 10 posts and replied 19 times.

In this year alone, I will have acquired a bit of real estate, and I am needing to speak with a CPA before the year ends. Any recommendations would be appreciated! 

Me and my business partner found a duplex in Austin and we are having trouble securing the downpayment of 60K. Looking for options and we are hoping BP can help. We both completed our 1st fix and flip this July. Thank you! 

Looking to see what others do to market their own rentals/properties.

In the works of pulling equity from my primary home, but I do not have any contacts on that. Not looking to refinance it. I am looking to buy an investment property with it, and any advice/guidance would be greatly appreciated. Currently worth 306K with a 234K mortgage. 

My father is a GC & I would do all of the paperwork, deals, & cleaning. Any advice on starting this endeavor? And what specific people I should contact before starting. Thanks!

Quote from @Leeling Chew:

Hi all,
We renovated our south Austin house after evicting a tenant 3 years ago in 2022. Then we experimented doing AirBnb for 1.5 years. Due to high interest rate and almost $10k of property tax, we negative cash flow over $10k in 2023. My current AirBnb tenant will be moving out June 5th, 2024. We want to experiment with renting by rooms.

Here are the pricing we set:

Master 150 sq ft (private bathroom) $1100
Room 2 120 sq ft (shared bathroom) $1000
Room 3 100 sq ft (shared bathroom, 2 walk-in closets) $950

Here are the pictures of the house:
https://austin.craigslist.org/roo/d/austin-spacious-newly-re...

We listed the house on Zillow, Craigslist, FB Marketplace, Roomster, Roomies, TurnoTenant (which broadcasted to over 10 other platforms), Avail, FB groups, etc. It was around early May, and though there are traffic, no lease has been signed. It's close to a month now. I struggled with pricing the rent because my house is furnished and newly renovated with all new appliances, but it's shared space.

Since this is the first time we are experimenting renting by rooms, we are not familiar with the market. Is it a disadvantage to have shared space? Should we have lower rents compared to empty apartments?

We also struggled with the issue of allowing pets. When we were renting out the whole house, pets were allowed with no issues. But now with multiple tenants, is allowing pets a good idea? What if the pets of different tenants don't get along?

Looking forward to any advice for my situation!

I was tempted to do the same with my South Austin rental, but there's a lot of cons to doing by the room compared to doing the entire house. I did a whole post on it on my BP page if you wanna check it out. I also do property management for work, so I can definitely help you out as well if you are needing it fully leased.  

Quote from @Jacob Sherman:

Depending on the layout . Definitely will want to add insulation and all utilities depending on what your plans are for it . How will taking away the garage take effect to the value vs another room ? 

My neighbor converted his garage into a bedroom with about the same square footage as mine, so I believe it will add tremendous value.

Quote from @Matthew Kwan:

You can see if your garage can make a legal ADU perhaps by getting permits from the county/city. However, if you are just trying to adding extra value by creating extra bedrooms, you would still need to get an approval from the city as well. In order to consider a legal bedroom, each room will need at least 20 inches wide by 24 inches high for a window. If a bedroom without a window, it will be considered a dent.

@Carlos Valencia @Albert Bui

I really do appreciate your feedback Matthew. I will reach out to my city and hopefully get that approved here in the near future. 

Best practices and steps to turn a garage into a room. Thanks!

There's two I currently go to in Austin, TX: Every Wednesday at 12PM at the Jalisco's Bar & Restaurant in Buda, TX, and the North Austin meet up in The Brass tap bar near Natural Grocers on North Lamar. You can find them at MeetUp.com