All Forum Posts by: Gunnar Teltow

@Christopher Sica, did you tour the quads on sale on Mission Hill? I came to the same conclusion after touring those lol.

Those were almost slum-like and still only yielded 1.4% or so. After seeing that, I refocused on St. Louis, where I know some people and you can still buy SFRs that cash flow 2%+ and look nothing like Mission Hill.

If you like we can meet up for lunch or coffee sometime, looks like we have similar goals and are at the same stage of the journey.

Interesting topic - same strategy here, except that we got a HELOC and are about to close on a SFR in St. Louis. We bank with Chase also (MoPac/Slaughter branch in South Austin), and were told we could have up to 5 mortgages per person, and that they would lend on rental properties.

Hopefully we can build a portfolio over time just like you're planning to. Leverage would make it faster. The houses we're targeting in St. Louis are the cost of a car ($33k in this case, rents for $700 or so), so if we can't get a refi (lots of foreclosures there so it may not appraise anyway) we'll just pay down the HELOC as quickly as possible from rents and W-2 income and rinse/repeat.

Congratulations Jon! Came out great! What neighborhood is it in?

@Christopher Sica, remember, no state income tax. When we moved from St. Louis to Austin a few years ago, we found that between the higher property taxes but no state income tax anymore, it was about a wash.

It's a problem if you pay state income tax somewhere else because you live there (e.g., CA) and property taxes in TX because that's where your property is.

I'm looking at buying some SFRs in St. Louis now, the cash flows in Austin are just not that good. You can find a deal here or there I'm sure but to put a decent portfolio together would probably take a long time...

Jenkins, I live in Austin and I think that's right. It's because there's no state income tax in Texas so real estate taxes are a big part of the local budgets. A $350k house would have about $8k in taxes annually, depending on the county.

Hi Chris,

Hope you're having a great time in Austin!

This week is bad for me but generally I'd love to do a BP meetup in Austin sometime.

Gunnar

I don't know much yet about anything in RE so forgive me for chiming in. I'm planning to buy an investment property or two in the Austin area per year over the next couple of years and have decided to get my license. I'm done with the required courses and submitted my application to the TREC (Texas Real Estate Commission) yesterday.

The main reasons:

- access to MLS without having to go through an agent

- access to properties (lockbox) without having to have my agent make an appointment with the listing agent. Too many people in between. I want to be able to call the listing agent if I drive by a property and go inside right then and there if the s/he's fine with it.

- collect the buyer's commission (and seller's if I end up selling anything at some point).

I agree that there are costs (I paid $500 for the courses (Kaplan), $163 for the application, and then there will be costs for the board and MLS. However, just one deal a year easily covers that out of the commission so it's a cost of doing business, and to me it makes sense.

Being held to a higher standard and having to disclose being a licensee isn't really a negative for me, I firmly believe the only way to build a sustainable, localized business of any kind is shooting for a win for both parties through full transparency and doing the right thing at all times and in every deal (sorry didn't mean to moralize).

On the broker front, I'm signing up with Summit Realty Group, they're licensed in Texas, operate virtually, and charge a reasonable per-transaction fee only.

Hi Travis,

Welcome to BP! I'm in the same boat, in Austin and just starting out.

I'm going to a meeting of Chris Goff's club tonight, and I'm also planning to check out Bryan Hancock's club. Both meet monthly and there's no harm in trying both. Chris and Bryan members of BP so just search for them and contact them for details.

If you'd like to get together sometime just PM me. My office is near 360 and Bee Caves and I always enjoy meeting up for lunch or coffee to discuss real estate!

Gunnar

I ended up going with Summit Realty Group. They have a beginner plan (Silver) that has a per-transaction fee only, no monthly or other fees. Unfortunately they're not in Illinois but seems like a good option for CA, FL, CO and TX.

John,

Welcome! I just joined a short while ago for similar reasons. I don't have any experience yet but like you I live in South Austin (Circle C) so if you'd like to let's meet for lunch or coffee sometime. My contact info is below.

My whole family is a regular customer of the Great Clips at Escarpment Village. I hope you own that one, I hear it's one of the highest revenue ones in all of Austin.

Gunnar