All Forum Posts by: Stephen Stokes

Looking to hear from other residential landlords here in Austin. 

I continue to struggle with one trade consistently; landscaping. Both on regular maintenance and special projects. If you have someone you have been really seeing value from please PM me with their info.

This topic has come up previously in the Austin forum. Evidence shows that rent controls actually increase the cost of living; I would not put it past our city council to go for something like this but will only hurt new developments (supply). Ask yourself this; does the news of state wide rent increase cap of 7% + CPI make you more or less attracted to invest in rental property in Oregon? 

However, suspect much more likely that Austin large scale multi-family developers are at some point successful in overhauling the restrictive building code, permitting process, zoning rules, etc as have been the more focused effort (think codenext debate).

https://www.businessinsider.com/does-rent-control-...

i had same issue at my duplex in 45. Called Austin water for an emergency cuttoff and they fixed it the next day after turning off the water the same day. 

Thanks @Matt T. Unit has Hardy siding already

@Beau Fannon absolutely excellent idea to advertise directly to the deaf school as the school is not far away! Thank you for the input!

@Beau Fannon Duplex unit, laminate flooring, double pane (new) windows, 2 windows face street, basic street noise (not sure how else to describe from busy traffic passing at 50mph). 

Having trouble renting a unit due to street noise. Anyone have any tactics or ideas for reducing street noise inside a unit facing busy street?

 https://library.municode.com/TX/Austin

Reason I suggest to bite off a smaller project first is to get some experience under your belt first. I have been investing in real estate for 8 years and still would not feel comfort level to bite off that big of a risk. It is easy to recover from small losses but you will be digging out from a big project gone bad for many, many years. I also see signs over overbuilding in the multi-fam market as discussed in previous thread on this forum (https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/759/topics/668351-current-perspective-on-leasing-in-austin) and am personally feeling it with 2 of my units vacant for multiple months now. East Austin will still be hard pressed to get top dollar in a short  time and with the small down payment you are making, I assume you have limited capital. There are a few facebook groups (investor above and investor below ground) that you can leverage to find contractors. I am always willing to share references as well if you DM me with a specific need. 

If this is your first purchase, suggest to look at something less risky; lower purchase price, newer, etc.  There are plenty of value add projects around the ATX area for less than $400k even some in the $200's quite often. Remember that the key trades require licenses such as plumbing and electrical where you cannot do any of this yourself. Also, doing work yourself you need to watch out for code compliance as that can come back to bite you bad if you have to completely redo something because home inspection from your future buyers turns out that you did something not up to proper codes....

 Again, suggest that you look to your property manager to push the rents. People are usually adverse to moving once they get in and you must set expectations up front that rents MUST increase every year because taxes go up. I also like to ask my tenants for suggestions on an annual cap ex improvement to help them justify increases in rent every year. This also helps to push up the value of the property and can help with the other suggestions folks here have added; pull some equity out to help with cash flow.