All Forum Posts by: Ryan Roberts

Depends if you're in Austin's jurisdiction or Pflugerville's. City of Austin requires you to get an STR permit which is nearly impossible to get unless you live in the property. Pflugerville currently has no rules on STRs but if it's in an HOA you will want to see the HOA's docs for leasing restrictions.

You can typically find the jurisdiction maps pretty easily by googling "[City Name] jurisdiction map". Here's Pflugerville's

First, congrats on having 100k in savings, that's a great foundation to start real estate investing!

FHA loans are great for a low down payment but the interest rates are usually a bit higher and you have to intend to live in the property for a year (important to know it's only the intent to live in the house for a year but plans change all the time).

It’s a fantastic idea to use this property to fund your next one but you’ll definitely need it to be a value-add opportunity.

I’m biased towards Texas but have heard Florida offers many of the same advantages: landlord friendly, steady population/job growth, diverse economies etc.

To get started, I recommend finding an investor friendly agent in the local market that has experience doing what you’re trying to do. Depending on how hands-on you want to be, join a local real estate investing group and network with local investors.

I’m an investor friendly agent in Austin and would be happy to connect!

You have to get creative to get cash flow! Whether that's adding value, renting by the room, renting furnished, etc. It's near impossible to buy a rent ready long term rental and get cash flow, in just about any market. 

Hey Amery,

It's going to be difficult to cash flow a long term rental in most markets unless you're adding value. You should definitely consider mid term rentals especially if your in an appreciation market. I've had great cash flow buying value-add, mid term rentals in Austin. 

Let me know if I can help!

https://static1.squarespace.co...

Allison Tipton is an attorney in SA and has forms on her website. You could also just use TREC forms as mentioned above. 

I'm a realtor in Austin and am representing a client purchasing their primary home. I'd like to contribute a portion of my commission to my buyer to lower their cash-to-close. The lender has a requirement that the buyer needs to bring 20% (of the sales price) cash to the closing table and the commission I'd like to give the buyer would put them below that threshold. Does anyone have a creative solution for this?

Hey Vincent! I'm a Realtor in Austin and manage several Airbnbs. It's difficult to get an STR permit from the city (STR defined by City of Austin as less than 30 consecutive days), so I recommend renting for 30+ days at a time to families relocating to Austin or remote works who want to "vacation" in Austin while continuing to work. There are tons of other benefits for 30+ day rentals too.

I can handle most of the items you mentioned as well as the ongoing management. For tasks like assembling furniture, I'd recommend Fiverr or TaskRabbit. Let me know if I can help.

@Sam Raj

Hey Sam,

The homestead exemption reduces the tax assessed value of a homestead by $25k and limits the amount the tax assessor can raise the tax assessed value of your home by 10% per year. So on a ~$400k property the homestead exemption would only save you about 6% on your property tax bill. Everything else about the tax assessed value, tax rate, and tax bill are the same for a homestead vs. investment property.

When a property is sold, the tax assessor send the new owner a letter asking for details about the sale like the price, concessions, and amount of repairs needed. They use this sales data to determine the tax assessed value of the homes and comparable homes. Fun fact: CoreLogic got busted for selling the Austin Board of Realtor's MLS sales data to the Travis County Appraisal District in 2019, so up till then the tax assessor was using MLS sales data.

I would assume the tax assessed value to go up to at least the list price of the home and if its more than your purchase price, you can protest your property taxes and use your HUD statement as evidence as @Rick Reeder suggested.

There are no $ or % caps on how high they can raise the tax assessed value. 

@Turgut Oz

You get tenants from all the same places as you do for STRs (Airbnb, VRBO, etc). The tenant base is mostly couples or small families relocating for work, or remote workers who want to "vacation" in Austin while continuing to work. There are things you need to do on the management side to keep vacancy low, for example leaving "instant book" off so that you only accept reservations that align well with your vacancy. I've had about 3% vacancy over the last two years.

I haven't experimented increasing/decreasing the long-term stay discount too much, but I know people love to see a discount! 

I'd also recommend adding a "Last Minute Discount" as well which allows you to discount vacant days that are a certain number of days from now. I've set mine up like this:

30% discount for the nights that are within 10 days of today,
20% discount for the nights that are within 11-20 days of today,
and a 10% discount for the nights that are within 21-30 days before today,

So if I have a guest who is leaving in 5 days with no other booking on the schedule, my first 5 nights of vacancy are discounted by 30%, the next 10 are discounted by 20%, the following 10 are discounted by 10%, and the rest of the nights are regular price. This incentivizes bookings that work well with your vacancy. I often have only 1-2 nights of vacancy between stays.

@Conner Olsen