All Forum Posts by: Scott White

My longest-term MTR guest's first sentence to me ever was "How many TVs are there?"

People love their TVs. In the rentals where I wanted to provide a more relaxing, unplugged experience, guests were still all "Where're the TVs?!?".

Now I provide a modestly sized (42-48") TV in every bedroom, and a big one in the living room. Why fight it.

Rokus are like magic for STRs, thanks to their 'Guest Mode' option. New guests are prompted for their check-out date, and then they use their own logins for Netflix, Max, etc. At the end of their stay, it logs them out of everything automatically. Rokus also provide free streaming access to live local channels (CBS etc.), which satisfies the "just wanna flip the standard channels" crowd. And all this for no monthly fee.

I do prefer TVs with Roku built right in vs. a separate Roku device, because guests change the inputs, unplug the Roku box so they can plug in their own PlayStation, etc. Built-in Roku functionality just flat-out works when you turn on the TV.

Just a thought: One of the not-so-obvious things to look for in rent-by-room properties is LOTS of parking. Imagine having four separate tenants on one moderately sized house, each tenant with their own car, and one of them with two, and then they have friends over ... it's easy to see how the neighbors could get bent unless there's sufficient legitimate parking to absorb all these cars.

Hi @Troy Jaster - Yes, I claimed the property, made that edit, and it appeared on the site ... for about three days. Then it went back to the incorrect figure. That's why I was hoping to find out if there's some upstream source to make the change, because obviously Zillow is overriding it with an idea from somewhere else ...

Thanks for the perspective, all - really appreciate it!

On my first rental property from a couple years back in San Antonio, I believed I was buying a 1250sf house, based on the Trulia listing. It was a rushed close, and I didn't receive the appraisal until afterward, when I learned it was actually about 200sf smaller. Lesson learned - these days, I always measure and calculate square footage myself prior to close.

But the 1250 figure has unfortunately persisted on Zillow and Trulia, and frankly, it bugs me. 

Why do I care? Well, I use the Zillow zestimate (I know, I know) to keep an eye on the general resale value of the house, and for updating my monthly net worth spreadsheet. While I don't want it to become a factor if I eventually decide to sell the house, the main motivation is that I don't want to train myself into thinking the house is worth more than it is.

The county tax site has the structure as a 1000sf 2/1. Redfin, HAR, Realtor.com, and Motovo all reflect this, so obviously they're pulling their info from the tax office.

Zillow and Trulia have it as a 1250sf 3/2. The 3/2 part is correct, but the square footage is wrong. Seems to me someone plugged in 1250 at some point, overriding the tax office estimate. Since Zillow and Trulia are owned by the same company, it makes sense they reflect one another's data. I've claimed the house on Zillow, and requested a square footage change. This was made, and lasted about two days before it reverted back to 1250.

I've asked a couple local agents if this can be fixed, and they reply "Well, 80% of the listings out there have something wrong with them."

Is there a way to actually get this fixed?

My thought is that a relatively young guy should focus on assets with better appreciation potential, vs. trying to pick up 25 properties that cashflow $100/mo each but don't get tons more valuable. If you get a handful of properties that basically pay for themselves (or close to it) while appreciating like crazy ... in 5-10 years you can sell the whole shebang and move all that equity proceeds into high-cashflow properties in the midwest or whatever. I bet you'd wind up with way more cashflow ...

Honestly, no reason to overthink it -- just go where the people are (Craigslist and FB Marketplace).

And a sign is a great idea. I was doing some handyman work at my San Antonio rent house during a vacancy and kept getting interrupted by people driving the neighborhood looking for a place to rent. My current tenant is one of those.

Also, people really like to text, so be sure to include a phone number on your sign. My PM's 'For Rent' sign just included their website, and it seemed folks really didn't want to use it, because they kept asking me all the questions that were included in the web listing. I wound up picking up a little flyer box and printing up some basic flyers so they could understand the basics of the property (square footage, price, beds/baths, etc.) and have a physical artifact to take home.

Finally, you might think about giving your current tenants a $100 bounty if they bring you potential tenant who you approve and place in a room. People tend to have big personal networks and someone's always looking. Plus then they may be more likely to get along ...

Oh, another thing to consider: Figure out your stance on pets. Roughly 110% of the available renters in Austin have pets. (I might be exaggerating ... but not much.) Saying 'no' to pets will drastically reduce your candidate pool, so you might shop for a pet-friendly house (hard floors, securely fenced yard).

Even if you're cool with pets, you should meet the specific pets and have a good long talk with the candidate on that animal's temperament and quirks prior to agreeing to lease to them. Sometimes a cat or dog is a chill well cared for and awesome addition to the house; other animals can pee everywhere, chew the door and window frames, bark all the time, go bananas and stuff their nose in the crotch of every visitor, or the owner simply will not spring for flea meds or vet visits, leading to problems all housemates can feel.

Like many aspects of this, it's a balancing act, and something to be mindful of.

While I'm thinking through it, other things to keep in mind include furniture, storage space, parking spaces, and visitors. One of my tenants had constant hookups and I woke up to one too many shirtless boys saying "s'up" to me from my sofa after she'd left them there and headed to work. That one didn't last long. Also, be very, very careful with any non-tenant staying there more than a day or two, because 'guest' can slide into 'legally protected squatter' alarmingly fast.

For these reasons and others, I've become more interested in alternate renter pools - furnished bedrooms for travel nurses, professionals on temporary assignment, people with weekly gigs in Austin but who return to Houston on the weekends, etc. One of our best tenants was a tech intern from Hong Kong on an 18-month assignment - no pet, no boyfriend, no car, here to work and keep her nose clean and explore the city.

In short, remember that this isn't just a financial decision. It's a 'quality of life' decision as well. Think through the factors that will make for a peaceful home life for yourself, and try really hard to hold out for people who fit that vision. 

Having run a rent-by-room thing for several years, I strongly recommend you build utilities into the rent, and charge a flat "bills included" rent each month. Reconciling four different utilities (elec/water/gas/internet) whose bills arrive at four different times and pro-rating all that for different move-in/out dates is a real drag, as is collecting small amounts from multiple housemates. Plus then you get to avoid stupid conversations about how "I went to Burning Man for three weeks so I don't feel I should be responsible for my share of the internet while I was gone ..." I had this set up both ways, and would never go back to split utilities.

If you're worried about elec/gas usage, install a Nest or similar and just course-correct when someone's set it to 64 in August ... :P

Also, if you buy the house and it doesn't already have gutters, get gutters. They're inexpensive and help keep stormwater from being directed under the slab and contributing to wash-out.

Keep in mind that if there's plumbing anywhere near the section of slab you're lifting, there's a good chance the lift will break the drain line and you'll also need to replace that section.