All Forum Posts by: David Orr

It's a good idea to disclose to renters if there are flood issues.  But not much really happens to landlords if they don't, according to this law.

That last answer about what happens if you don't provide notice is interesting since the penalty is very minimal... "if the landlord fails to provide the required notice and a tenant suffers a substantial loss or damage to their personal property, then the tenant may terminate the lease by giving a written notice of termination to the landlord no later than 30 days after". That's it? I would like to think most landlords would be ok anyway with letting a tenant out of the lease in 30 days if the place flooded and the tenant lost the majority of their personal property. I would think you would probably want them out to repair the damage in most cases anyway.

Has anyone here found that they get better income by renting a house by the room rather than as a whole?  Someone said they do it here, but I wonder why.  (There was another topic about this a little bit ago but it was in the marketplace rather than the Austin forum here.)

We have a house that we rented by the room for a couple years, but we found that the market rate rent for bedrooms (we were at about $675/month in north central Austin) isn't any more than the market rate for a whole house, and it was harder to find renters for rooms.  And renting by the room was a ton more work (more turn over, more issues). I'm curious if anyone has had a different experience with that.

Let's talk about exactly what it is we need to do.  My understanding of it is we should drip all faucets that have plumbing on exterior walls.  And outside also disconnect all hoses and drip the hose faucets.  Also keep the heat on at least 55 degrees and maybe open sink cabinet doors.  Anything else?  

I'm going to be going to contacting all of our rental tenants and visiting each property Saturday night to make sure everything is prepped. 

As someone who lives in Austin, it's odd to hear someone want to invest here as a long-distance property.  If you want cash flow, Austin is terrible for that and almost anywhere would be better.  If you want appreciation, parts of central Texas outside of Austin are appreciating and growing faster.  Unless you have a specific need to get a property in Austin, it wouldn't be my top choice.

I tried CHBO and also found that it wasn't worth the money.  I saw the not very positive experiences in this thread, but I figured it would be worth it if we at least got one booking through it.  But after two months there hasn't been a single inquiry.  CHBO reps say it's a slow time of year and says we should post more photos of the outside, etc.  But during that same period of time we easily booked 3 stays totally 6 months of medium-term corporate renters (a travelling nurse and two business travelers) using AirBnb for the same property as soon as we opened up the availability on AirBnb.  

The biggest red flag is that CHBO offers no free trial period, they charge a large up-front full-year fee, and it's completely NON-refundable.  If they knew their service had better value, they would offer a trial period, a monthly subscription option, and a money back guarantee.  There's clearly a reason why they're one of the few services that does none of those things.  I knew that was a red flag when I found that out, but I ignored my guy feeling and tried it anyway.  But it was just a waste of money, but a lesson learned.

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I set it up through Ascensus and they don't provide much of anything.  I may switch to a different 401k document provider eventually.

I don't know if I want to bother with moving to another bank quite yet, but the loan-to-self option is another possibility.  Do you have forms or loan documents that you used to set up the loan?

I used Wells Fargo because that seems to be the one that everyone uses for solo 401k accounts (because most banks don't know how to set up the accounts for a solo 401k, but there two guys at the San Diego branch of Wells Fargo that knows how to do it - Juan Morales and Adriel Zaghi, so everyone does it through them).

But the idea of having both a savings and checking account for the same 401k and shifting $1 back and forth would be one way to do it I guess.  

I have a solo 401(k) and the funds are held in a business checking account in the trust's name at Wells Fargo.  Apparently Wells Fargo is the most popular bank to use for this.  

I just found out that if I don't make a transaction at least once every 60 days, they may make the account "dormant" for inactivity.  How do people deal with that issue with a 401(k) since only certain transactions are allowed?  It's been about 60 days, and I'm getting ready to write a check for an investment, but the check could get returned if they happen to make the account "dormant" just before it clears.  

In a similar issue, they already closed one of my two accounts (one is for Roth 401k funds and one is traditional) because it was inactive for a few months and had a zero balance.  They didn't even notify me, they just closed it and never told me.