All Forum Posts by: Steven Ellington

Hi Edita,

My wife and I just leased out our rental property in Lubbock and we had the same issue you do.  When we bought the house it came with a nice refrigerator but the ice maker does not work.  We did not even think about fixing it.  We fixed a lot of other things in the house that are more important like the plumbing, the roof, the garage door, etc.  We just told prospective tenants that the ice maker does not work and they would need to buy some ice trays if they wanted ice.  It did not deter anyone and we had it leased in a week. 

Thanks everyone.  

Doug, that is right, we have a little over $31k in it and we have the ARV between $115k and $120k. Assuming 10% rent loss for vacancy and maintenance, our cash on cash rate of return should be about 16%. Oh and we are self-managing, so no PM fees.

My wife and I just handed the keys to the tenants of our first rental property!  We are so excited we thought it deserved a post.  The quick rundown of the numbers are listed below.  We could not have done it without all the priceless info in the BP forums, blog and podcasts.  We look forward to being more active in the BP community now that we can say we are actual real estate investors!

3/2/2 SFH in Lubbock, TX listed on MLS

Purchase Price: $96,000

Rehab: $10,000

Financing: Fannie Mae 80% LTV

PITI: $622

Rent: $1175

Lease terms: 1 year

We closed on August 20th and had our tenants move in September 20th.  We were worried about getting it rented in a college town after school had started but received a lot of interest (about 20 phone calls in a week) from prospective tenants and are confident in the quality of the tenants we chose.  We did background checks, credit checks, employment verification and have a healthy security deposit.

What do y'all think?  We know it is not a home run but we think it is a solid double and we are proud of the home we are providing.  Now on to saving up and searching for Rental Property #2.

New investor in West Texas. Big fan of the blog, podcast and the forums. Extremely helpful in learning the ropes.

I need help narrowing down my farm area. I have decided Lubbock is where I want to invest in single family long term rentals. However, there are several markets within Lubbock and I can't figure out which will provide better long-term cash flow and appreciation.

1. Student rentals: Over 40,000 college students in the area so lots of demand, however seems like a very "efficient market" i.e. savvy sellers, lots of supply and of course student tenants. Also, older houses.

2. Rapidly growing suburbs with good public schools: The southwest part of town has booming population growth, tons of new retail and great schools. However, there is new home construction on what seems like every corner and undeveloped farmland as far as the eye can see. Will there be appreciation if new supply is imminent?

3. Older, more established neighborhoods: Land-locked so no new supply is coming but demographics seem to be slowly shifting and schools are going downhill.

Using the legal description as a search query at the courthouse is probably not the best way to go about it. If there is one mis-spelling by the recorder you will miss a lot of the deeds.

I would start by typing in the address to the property on the Appraisal District's website or taxnetusa.com. Once you have the current owner's name, go to the courthouse and search their name as GRANTEE. You should find the warranty deed. If you want to chain the title back further, type in that GRANTOR in the GRANTEE search query and so on.

In addition to chaining grantees back, be sure to chain grantors forward so you do not miss anything.

Every courthouse is different in how they store their records and how they let you research them. Some counties have their records available online, some have them in actual hard copy files, others have computers that they will let you use. Be friendly and ask the clerks for help. With a little persistence and tact, you should be able to access the information you are looking for.

Once you get the probate, it is easy to determine if they owned property. Any property they owned will usually be listed in the inventory & appraisal or the will. You could also search in the deed records to see if the deceased owned any property.

Most courthouse research is fairly simple once you know your way around in there and get to know the people working there.