All Forum Posts by: Joseph Weisenbloom

@Jacob Pereira @Christian Ruiz @Charlie Chung @John Arendsen

I have an update for this forum. I just purchased a 4bd/2ba fixer upper in east austin with a backyard large enough for a second unit. I plan on renting out the individual rooms and ADU in the back. We just started the rehab today. If all of my projections are correct this will be a very successful house hack. I will keep the forum updated.

@Travis Bodnar There is no surefire way to guess a market bottom or a market top. This is like trying to predict what the weather will be 45 days from now. There are so many variables its impossible to predict.

That being said just like the weather we can see long term trends of where things were before and estimate where they may go. Even this isnt an exact science.

As a real estate investor you should not be worried where the market is at because it is completely out of your control. What you CAN control is buying properties that have solid fundamentals in any weather. You can buy in a hot market, you can buy in a cold market. As long as the property you are buying supports itself with enough income to cover mortgage, insurance, taxes, maintainence, vacancy, capex, utilities and a decent cashflow you will be fine. 

PS keep cash reserves for the storms.

"Please do an eviction for us"

@James Hong Austin is atrocious for cashflow. Dont do it! Dallas or I should say DFW has areas that can cashflow. Texas in general is not the best cashflow market. We have super high insurance, taxes and water bills that cut that net profit number down. 

Yowzers that is a tough project for a first time flip. The good news is repairing things is relatively inexpensive in San Antonio. My foundation costs on my last rehabs have been in the 3-4k range for pier and beam. That is a tough neighborhood on the eastside not sure it would be best for flip. Could be a good rental. Hopefully everything worked out well for you! @Lucy Balyan

The rent/buy debate is not as simple as that article is making it out to be. This is a decision that varies widely based in the market and has many variables at play. This is the best article I have found that breaks down this issue.

http://affordanything.com/2015/11/24/is-renting-be...

@Chris Coleman@Diane Kruse

I can see the assessor raising the taxes if their has been major improvements on the property. That makes plenty of sense. What doesnt make sense is when there are no improvements and the property value jumps 50%.

@Greg H. Thanks for the advice. I just typed up the protest letters so I am getting everything started.

Luckily when I bought the property I ran my numbers estimating the taxes based how much I purchased it for. I was hoping that my tax assessments would be somewhere between the assessment last year and my purchase price (which was higher). I didn't expect the assessments to be over the price I purchased for the property especially when the previous year was 50% lower.

@Jay Hinrichs I don't want to turn this into a political debate but lets just say I am under the belief that the government has a spending problem and not a tax earning problem. :)

@Greg H. Greg thanks for the insight. Its Bexar county. Not sure if you have any experience with them? I did a protest in a small county 3 years ago that was successful. Same deal they saw my mailing address was out of the area so they assumed I wouldn't protest. Filed the protest, showed up and they lowered my tax bill 40% which was close to the previous year.

@Andrew Johnson To my knowledge they reassess the property every year before tax time. Not upset they reassessed. Like I mentioned the other properties I have had for years were reassessed and rose a reasonable amount that is consistent with appreciation rates in that area. In Texas we are non-disclosure so they don't reassess during the purchase process to my knowledge. Correct they are assessing the property for more than I bought it for.

What I am upset about is being targeted because my mailing address is out of the area so they assume I wont come down there and fight a protest when in reality I will. I am also upset about them targeting me as as an investor.

@Jay Hinrichs To the best of knowledge these properties were never anyones homestead. I bought them from other investors. I live and invest in Texas. Lucklily cashflow is not an issue because I am very conservative with my numbers. That being said Im never trying to pay these criminals more money.