All Forum Posts by: Josue Vargas

Ok.   And it makes some sense.  Believe me if I'm hit with a 50K damage for another individual in the property other than my son that causes a major damage to the property and I'm held responsible, my lawyer will have to sit down and discuss the matter with the Landlord.  

Students tend to be problematic, not all, but if a lease state that the landlord can kick them off in the middle of the semester, I don't think that many parents wants to sign that deal, because they don't know how other people will behave, plus is very hard to find any apartments of rooms in the middle of a semester class...  I honestly think the best way is a 6 month contract, for their semester, if you don't trust students... I might be wrong, but my contracts are for the hole scholar year, including summer, and I have no issues so far. 

Agreed on the taxes... this couple past years have been just awful with increases on property taxes... I'm currently fighting taxes on one property (rise over 30% on the last two years).  Foundation issues, I can deal with them by not purchasing a house that have foundation issues (and a bit of luck).  I have lived in San Antonio since 2012, and while I'm not a geotechnical engineer (I'm a civil), I know the soil properties and long behaviors of a structure, depending on the soil properties and... Also for existing houses is a bit of luck, you never knows how that house was built unless you inspected yourself.  If you ever have a new construction here in Texas I might be able to help with inspections, I'm a licensed engineer in Texas, and can do inspection and design.  Can do inspections, especially the prep work before the "foundation concrete pour" is made.  Foundations begins with the excavation and compaction of natural soil, not just concrete pour, well is more complicated for other structures such as highways and bridges and high rise buildings... but I might be of help.  Don't give up on Texas! :)

Before reading further, this is a creepy and morbid story I don want to hear...  You have no right to disclose the details of how the body of a dead person was handle on your property, for respect of his/her family... Specially not to share with everyone here, no matter how confidential you have handle the situation.  Just my opinion.  

Please BP, take this away.  

Respectfully,

Josue Vargas Perez, PE

That clause is great!  

But, while I trust my son with my soul, I would never sign that agreement as a parent.  Not me, I know he is a good person and I trust he will do the right thing, I have no control of other students renting the same apartment.  How you fix this dilemma?  I'm just curios about your approach, because me as a parent and as an investor, I don't see paying $1000 or dream about the $2500 for damages to your property when most likely is not my son who did it... love to hear your approach (of course this is an unrealistic story).   And how you come-up with the $1000 or $2500?  

Always apply the local rules if you can.  Unless you have a property next to a campus (walking distance) or highly demand property near a campus, I would just reference the local/government rules or campus rules if applicable for student rentals, if applicable. 

For college students, I always make their parents co-sign the agreement.  That will keep them more or less in the right path.  I had experience with one student at the time, so its easy for me. 

My experience with college rentals, if you put all the rules, such as no drinking more than 3-6 beers a night, no partner staying in your bed more than 5 days in a row or 10 days within a year!... they will just walk away, plus your other students that actually sign the lease, will do it anyways.  

What's the point?  Its an investment, wright?  If you rent to a family, Is it any different from a student that drinks to death, or a family that drinks to death every Sunday and make BBQs to watch the NFL season every Sunday for about 6 months? 

By the way, if you listed, actually, AA participants are a protected class, only if they are in AA, but how do you know that when in deed they are anonymous?  Strange... Just be careful with drinking rules and that type of thing in your lease.  

@David Ivy

Is your numbers the total population to date after the delta?  

Regarding your numbers (I'm not saying is not true) a city with ~82K and 7.8% growth means an increase of ~6,400 population growth, which is huge!  

Do you have any inputs about San Antonio or Austin? For some Cedar Park is still Austin, I have a hard time considering Cedar Park or other cities around Austin as "Austin", sure most disagree with me.  New Braunfels is not San Antonio as well.  I don't want to make this an issue, just want to hear the numbers if you have it on hand. 

Thanks. 

Its all about your devotion and interest and not the time.  It's hard to work work 60-65 hours a day.  Still, there are people that made it trough.  

I would say the first step is to be informed and have a plan to SAVE money, and if not, to pay debts.  

While you build your cash to go to a bank or lender, try to built a network of people (real people) that can help you in the way.  Listen to podcast, they are free and a really good gamma of information, from novice to experts.  

Also stick around in BP and learn about anything... but be careful of what information you take for granted.  Here are a lot of good experienced people, a lot of them, but not everyone is an expert... if you want to take advice from someone, seriously, look at their profile, it will tells you who are you talking to.  

Personally, I'm a proud civil engineer with four properties, and in my case, I enjoy to write about foundations, structural, drainage, and soil issues and help the BP community on these specific issues.  

Good luck to you! 

@Alexander Parada

I have not read all the comments below your post, I don't really have time for that but your post is interesting enough.... 

So, selling a house to paid one, is like buying a house in cash.  But depends on whats really the gain on selling the property, if I'm selling to pay debs, I need to look at the numbers.  Is it make sense? Would I sell a property to pay off another?  I would, if I have enough properties to not worry about cash flow or reinvestment.  

I'm a the person that take business as business; what I have, its mine, what's in the business, is in the business.  Some will disagree, and that's fine.  If I were you, pay off your property, you can always get a credit line or equity for your paid-off property, and most likely will worth more (appreciate) over time.  

I have to say, I've been seeing this for few days now on my key words alert.  These posts are non-sense to what we should be doing.  Please stop.  

@Jay Hinrichs

Hi Jay,

Thanks for your comment.  I completely understand your thoughts about foundation issues here in Texas.  I'm myself a little sketchy about buying properties with less than 20 years on the ground, and its due to foundation issues.  That said, not every subdivision is built the same way and not every piece of land in Texas is prone to expansive soils.  It's a concern, some do not know or are not careful enough and buy in the wrong location, and this can happen to anyone.  I have experienced that myself.  A house built in 2009, moved in 2012, huge foundation cracks right on the middle of the house, doors inside the house can barely close (of course I knew about it, but didn't care).  It was a house I rented in San Antonio when I moved-in from Kansas, not my investment, but uff, I don't want to be that investor...  And the only year I lived in that house, I learned it was the "not-so-good" contractor who built that house, and other houses.  Other houses in the same subdivision had no problems at all, but the houses built by that same contractor had foundation and roof (shingles) issues.  That means, poor compaction on the subgrade or base courses for foundation etc.  This is also very common on roads and parking lots in Texas. 

By the way, expansive soils are not the main reason for foundation failures here in Texas, its most likely due to poor construction and poor engineering practices from the get go.  

Just curios, how many houses or even projects in Texas have you bought that have a soil study and recommendations?  And if so, how many of them had foundation issues?