All Forum Posts by: Bruce Lynn

#1.  Go ask the builder.

#2.  Door knock the neighborhood and ask.

#3. Depending on the price range you may be able to back into it. For example is it an FHA neighborhood. Go pull the Deed of Trust to see what the loan amount was and now you can do the math to back into the purchase price.

#4. If none of that works, just use general statistics from your association or NAR, doesn't have to be specific to the house or neighborhood.

The trick is, every city has their own regulations and the regulations change.

Dallas in in the midst of lawsuits now. Basically the city wants to ban. Some STR are fighting. Tough to know who wins that fight, but even if the owners do vs city, you know where the city thoughts are. I expect they will continue to enact rules and regs that make life difficult.

FTW does not allow standalone in residential neighborhoods, so that is effectively city wide ban.

Arlington has a small zone designated for AirBnB and there are occasional sales there.  

I believe Plano has regs or in process of enactment after several bad incidents.

Most of the condos and HOAs prohibit STR.

I think if you're set on doing this I would look at the smaller cities outside of the main metroplex where STRs are not prevalent and so fewer regulations and less interest from the neighbors.

They could be in the deed records.

If there is any way to get a list of sales, maybe from a realtor or also from the deed records you maybe be able to go back to one of the title companies that closed one of these and see if they have them in their records.

If it were me and I was investing in the area, I'd go door knocking. The neighbors are often a great source of into. You might also run across people who want to buy, or know people who want to sell, besides your CCR/HOA research.

The other thing I think you could do is go the whatever attorney or title company you are going to use for the resale  and see what they need to issue title insurance, if you are going to resell with title insurance.

Chris, likely you don't need MLS access. There are plenty of services that are probably cheaper and will likely get you where you need to go and maybe even offer richer data. Propelio, Deal Machine, Prophawk are 3 great sources of data. Potentially Remine or some product from Core Logic might also work depending on what data you find valuable.

You are in the right place.  No need to go much outside DFW.  That just adds to your risk and expenses.

As an investor if you want to get a loan, you'll typically need to put down 20-25%

Property management is probably better to learn how to manage yourself and save 10% or so every month off the PM fee.  Typically I'll assist my investor clients get them rented and then once tenant is in, turn it back over to them to collect rent monthly and handle any periodic repairs. That seems to work well most of the time and if for some reason your situation changes you can always turn it back over to PM. 

If you really want to turn it over to PM, I would wait until you get the property and see who the best PM is for that location.

Good luck and best wishes.

#1.  You understand hard money is short term money.  Normally 6 months at probably 14% interest and maybe 2% origination fee.  So risk adjusted money to give you time to rehab and resale.  If you extend and they can extend, it will cost you more money.  Maybe another 2% and interest rate could change for another 6months.

#2 So you need to be super efficient with your rehab, if you want to resale (fix and flip). Or super efficient if you want to BRRR. That means reahab, refinance, and rent it.

#3 These days you will also need to show pretty great reserves. I'm seeing HML ask for $50,000 in the bank. That's in case you get into trouble, rehab more costly than you thought, or it takes longer, you still have money to make it happen. They don't want it back. Every HML different as to reserve requirements or credit requirements, or experience requirements. If you are new or this is your first, it will be higher until you prove yourself. If you're super experienced and have a proven track record, they may be more flexible.

Common Hard Money Lenders in DFW:

Longhorn, Emerald Dolphin, Wildcat....all 3 of them have been in DFW a long time, I think will help keep you out of trouble with their requirements....for example they might tell you, you're paying to much, your rehab costs too low, you're using the wrong contractor, etc.  They want you to be successful, so if they're telling you no, there is a reason.

Go to have an informal discussion with an appraiser.  You do have to make an appointment.  Pull the values for other similar properties if they support your case.  Get their evidence as well.  Get the run sheet in person at the appraisal district.  These are not online.  Make sure it is accurate in your favor (like size is correct).

They won't tell us, but I expect the online requests have a limit as to how much they can reduce.  I've heard numbers like 5%.

Good luck.  I would fight more.  It may not only help you this year, but also for every year after today.

Unless there is some very unusual circumstance, I would not suggest looking in Coppell for investment property. Those days are long over. Prices way too high and rent prices way too low. Better ROI in other cities. You also asked for homes $100,000 or less. In Coppell you would probably be at $400,000 minimum. That is why I suggest Sherman and Denison and surrounding cities.

In Texas one resource is https://trerc.tamu.edu/ The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.  There are of course lots of data you can over analyze, but personally after many many years of investing I like job growth, population growth, wage growth, and last 5 years apartment permits.  The last one because if they build a bunch of apartments within a mile of your rental, that can present competition that you can't match as a small investor.

Happy to assist you in DFW.  I think house hacks are a great way to start building wealth.  It can be a fair amount of work, and I don't see a lot of opportunities that work.  However if you have the right mindset and can be patient, they can provide some real opportunity.