All Forum Posts by: Dru Bennett

Welcome Vanessa, to Killeen, and thank you for your service! We just bought a SFR in Killeen as a buy and hold and an offer on another. Buying a duplex and living in one side while renting out the other, or renting out both sides is a great way to start. @Kevin McNeely is an agent in Killeen and retired military and knows a lot about the market. He is on Bigger Pockets as well. Best of luck to you!

@Rob Harris and @Brien OConnor - how are the schools in Lampasas?  What are the main jobs/economic drivers for that small town?  I have just recently started to invest in Killeen. I know there are areas to stay away from investing, but overall to me the crime is low, but I'm from Houston, so I have a different perspective on that.

@Brandon Blase - Welcome to Bigger Pockets and welcome to Waco and Baylor!  We are from Houston, but have recently invested in the Waco market.    It sounds like you are a real go-getter!  Best of luck to you!  Sic 'em Bears!

By office, do you mean basically just another room in the house?  If so, it doesn't sound like a very good deal to me.  With Waco, what I have found, is you can get a median price house to rent for 1-1.5% of purchase price.  For low end houses, if purchased right, you can even get almost 2%.  However, there appears to be (to me, so take for what it is worth) a ceiling in Waco of rent where no one pays $2k or more a month.  I'm sure, a few exceptions for outstanding homes.  But for average middle class, even upper middle class, I think that is it.  So renting a $237k home for .7%, to me, doesn't sound great.  Now, if you mean a semi detached or separate office that has its own square footage that you could rent separately, that is different.  Still risky, but changes things.

I have spent a lot of time in Waco for the last year, and it is true that thousands come weekly to see Magnolia.  It has become the most unlikely vacation hotspot in Texas.  I think if you are allowed to advertise on VRBO that these houses were featured on the show, that would be a huge advantage.  Their own VR they did in McGregor is booked solid for the next year.  Do the furnishings come with the properties by chance? 

What is questionable is the long term sustainability of VR in Waco.  The upcoming football season isn't looking nearly as bright as it was a year ago.  Have you run the numbers, do they make sense if the VR doesn't work out, that you could flip them and still make money, or rent them out traditionally?

I, too, am interested in investing in the Waco and Central Texas area.  Although we live in Houston, we have one rental in Waco now.  The people in this area are very friendly and easy to get to know.  Houston just seems to be inundated with investors and prices are still high and margins for buy and hold too skinny in my opinion right now.  There seems to be a lot of action along the I-35 corridor, I know Austin is extremely hot, and Dallas good, hoping some of that spills out to the smaller towns.  I'm more interested in buy and hold rental income, but fix and flip might be better for this area, I just don't know it well enough yet.  Anybody with insight please join the conversation!

@Jared Garfield I hope you write more about what insights you are gaining from the IMN conference, especially about the direction they (conference attenders and presenters) believe the economy is headed in the next 12-18 months towards real estate, single family and multi family in particular.  Thank you!

@Jared Garfield - Great post with lots of good information and inspiration.  May I ask, how did you find out that the top hedge funds had 130k homes, 198k in all?  Did  you read their annual reports?  Have they divested already of many of them, because I think they had quite a bit more than that during 2011-2013, but I am going off what I heard at that time, not off of actual documented information.  Thank you.

Cities in that general area:  Friendswood, League City, Dickinson, and La Marque. 

Thanks for sharing, Sharon. Are all of the statistics/numbers on a year over year basis? What do you make of the huge increase in rentals of SFH and Townhomes?