All Forum Posts by: Michael Thorne

Hello @Keyana Crapps - I am currently working a flip in Arlington (one of the cities in DFW and in Tarrant County) and looking to continue with more.  Would love to connect to you and those on this thread as well - I live in Arlington so Tarrant County is my “backyard”.  Lot’s of people moving here!  What you are hearing about the market is probably accurate - it’s a wild one right now.

If you come across a property and want some “boots on the ground” to check it out for you, I would love to help.  Thanks!

@Bryan L. Ramirez hi - one thing I always have to pitch in is to make sure people are aware of higher property taxes in Texas compared to other states.  Not sure what it compares to what you are used to in CA, but the trade off for no state personal income tax is the higher taxes on property.  It can run $400-500 per month for the size you are looking at, so important to enter into numbers when thinking about Texas.  As someone coming from CA, it’s probably still a savings for you….

@Juan Campos I know what you mean about the acronyms- every industry/hobby/field has its own vernacular that needs to be learned. I am focused on the Arlington, Texas area.  I am from here and more that I “have to invest in my backyard to see it”, I want to invest in my community that has been good for me - a giving back.

I need to learn more about 203k loans - got any good articles/podcasts you’ve seen that you could recommend?

What part of town are you in?

Hi BP Community -

I have 2cabins on some rural land in Texas. My insurance guy does not have a policy that will cover it since we use one of the Cabins as a short short term rental on Airbnb as a way to “house heck“ our property there and pay for it all. Does anyone have a company that can write insurance for property that you were using for Airbnb? have you run into this?

Thank you, continuing to learn -

Michael

Hi @Juan Campos Glad you are here to learn and invest! There are several REIA meetups in the DFW area. I have found value in an Impact Group that meets in HEB hosted by @Sherry Patterson.  It’s not super salesy and they are not looking for up front commitment to take $10k of your deals you get.  Here’s a link: https://www.meetup.com/impacta...

I have gone to a couple others since things have been opening up and this is one I go back to.  If you use Google, there are many others in the area if you are looking for a certain area - e.g. Dallas, Plano, etc.

When you say you want your first Multi-family - how many units are you looking to invest to start?

I am doing fix/flips and am also targeting small multi family as an expansion area.

@Sonya Gulka DFW is a good market for appreciation right now, but also very competitive.  To @Bruce Lynn point, the rents are not high compared to house values right now - shortage of supply is driving up the prices.  I have found better numbers with smaller properties - 1100-1300 square feet.  Find one of those in a desirable elementary district and you’ll be ok (but also face competition in the bids).  

You may know this already, but out-of-state investors are also sometimes surprised by Texas’ “high” property tax rate (but no personal income tax).  I don’t  know exactly but on that $350K house in Plano I’m gonna guess property taxes are in the $7k a year range.  So you are looking at ~$500 a month just for that.  Generally taxes will be lower on the smaller/less expensive properties at a greater rate that the rents will be cheaper, if that makes sense.

Hope that helps.  I am in Arlington so if you ever want some “boots on the ground” to look at a property around here, I’d be happy to help out. 

Good luck!

@Myka Artis Good input! I came to this thread to learn more about STR and where to list as we have just listed our rural property with a cabin on AirBNB this week (and got a booking!). Will definitely list with VBRO as one of the posts I read mentioned airdna and I was able to go there and see that 71% of our area booked on VBRO - yet another nugget of value coming from BP. I too think that we will ultimately have multiple listings as I learn - the whole not having your eggs in one basket thing. I plan to add as I put in the process to handle the complexity of multiple sites.

@Dan Armich thanks I will look up the timing and put it on my calendar. 

@Michael Plaks thanks for that. I figured as much and it’s nice to get confirmation from a pro. 

Hi BP community-

When you are working with subcontractors on a flip, do you issue them a 1099? If so, I assume you get them to sign it up front?

Any other advice on hiring/paying subs or contractors?

Thanks!

MT