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Category Archives: rental properties

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Action shot from my video, of a hunk of tree falling.

So, on Tuesday, Chris and Gary of CHAMPS Handyman Services couldn’t get into the Rattlesnake house to work on it, due to the driveway suddenly being inaccessible (thanks, giant rain storm that dropped .4 inch in 20 minutes). But, that’s OK, because we had that other project, conveniently located across the road, which is “The Cabin,” located on the Wild Hermits ranch that Lee and I co-own with our neighbors, Sara and Ralph. I’m not sure if I mentioned before that it has a main building that’s the oldest one on our property, plus two outbuildings with bedrooms in them, and a beautiful, large deck that has the best sunset views on the ranch.

We’ve been working on it for a few months, painting, cleaning, making it livable, etc. And last weekend, a large group of people got together and cut down two ancient dying trees on the place. (The link is to a video of the cabin, trees, and manly/womanly workers.) We are SO grateful for Sara’s nephews, who came with all their fancy arborist equipment to do the hard stuff, and to her sons, who got very good at the log splitter and axe!

Even after all this work, the cabin is rustic, as you can see from this fun video Chris made. I hope you enjoy our precious chickens and their weird (but functional) little chicken house.

We sure appreciate that Chris is letting us share his comments! It’s fun to see someone else’s perspective, when you’ve been in a place so long you can no longer see it with fresh eyes.

You can see that the bathroom in the cabin was in pretty bad shape. The guy who lives there now and our neighbor have worked and worked on the septic system, so that’s now good. But the shower was ancient, perfect for a hunting lodge, not perfect for a young man and his fiance.

Chris and Gary are putting in a nice new shower unit, in two pieces, and have repaired the sad walls. I know our tenant will be happy to be able to shower in his own place, at last! The bathroom is at least up to the twentieth century in standards!

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Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

The large yard before fencing.

Every homeowner knows that work on a house is never really done. There’s always something that has to change: things break, improvements need to be made, times and styles change, and so on. We rehabbers know it, too.

In the case of the Villa Park main house and casita, changing market forces meant our original rehab exit strategy had to be altered to making the houses into rentals. With that change, we were faced with a dilemma—we’d have two separate tenants and only one backyard. It was fine when Carol and Russell lived in the front house and Sue Ann and I lived in the casita; we’re all friends and enjoyed the spacious yard together, even with the occasional lacrosse ball flying over the back fence from the youth sports field on the other side. It doesn’t really work when two or more strangers have to share a yard.

 

The strings make sure the fences are straight.

One of the first things that come to mind when you’re going to have two sets of strangers sharing a space is privacy. Everybody wants to feel as though they have space they can call their own and to determine when and with whom they share that space. Some people need more privacy than others do. Some people are introverted. Some people are extroverted, but don’t necessarily want a wide-open view into what their neighbors are doing all the time. As landlords/rehabbers, we get it. As Hermits, we really get it.

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Another One in the Plus Column (Villa Park!)

The improvements keep on coming! Yesterday, Lee and I signed the lease on the Villa Park casita. Now that was a project with huge ups and downs. It’s a real relief to get that property finally bringing in money and not just sinking it into a deep pit of mud caused by the endless water main problems we had with the property. It really feels like the struggles of last year, when everything was like pulling teeth, are letting up.

As the seasons change, this tree goes from leafy green to bare with red berries. You just have to patiently right for the right time for berries. Sorta like waiting on profits.

It turns out that the rent on the main house pays the mortgage on the property, and the income on the little house can go for other things.

Our personal business is now in okay shape, as we’ve acquired a couple of other properties with some other investors that will be bringing in money monthly. A house we financed for another investor friend should close any day now, and make all of us money. We can use these income properties for the cash flow to live on while we do the rehabs to build wealth. We are now building up our reserves for inevitable property repairs, as well as our funds to invest in more projects. It apparently is how things are supposed to work, and I guess they are working!

Being a small business is not for the faint of heart. But it IS for those of us who educate themselves about the risks involved. Remember that real estate investment is not like on television. It’s a lot of work, and you’re not always hauling in tens of thousands of dollars every week.

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Keeping Our Eyes Open

Hey, have you missed us? We haven’t blogged for a couple of days, because three of us have been on the road, and once we got to our destination, we actually took a vacation and didn’t work!

Here’s the “cabin” we rented, Bear Cat Crossing. They have a lot of bear things.

While Carol and Russell are holding down the fort with their family, Lee, Anita, and I drove to Ruidoso, New Mexico, in hopes of experiencing a white Christmas. But, it’s unseasonably warm up here in the mountains, so the only substantial snow we see is on ski slopes and the sledding park. Nonetheless, the forests and mountains are beautiful, as are the huge deer and huger elk.

Are There Any Properties to Investigate?

Why, yes, of course there are. We always have fun analyzing the real estate market and looking at available properties wherever we go. This is an interesting place, since the economy primarily is driven by tourism.

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Ursula Takes a Hike

Every Texas home needs a bluebonnet picture. We found this hiding in a closet.

One of the things Lee keeps telling me is that just when you think you have a plan, everything changes. And that’s exactly what happened with our great plan to park our RV, Ursula, at the RV park near our office, and allow her to provide an income stream for us. It was a good plan. We are still grateful to Larry for providing the opportunity.

However, practically the day after we got her settled in, Lee got a call from his nephew, Chris, who has just gotten some new oil field work in west Texas. He wanted to bring his wife with him, so they needed an RV to stay in that was more “home-like.” They offered to buy Ursula, which would provide a somewhat larger income stream. Even Larry said we couldn’t pass up that deal!

So, on Wednesday, Chris and Kathleen showed up, emptied our stuff out of the RV (we hadn’t managed to do that yet), and took her off on a new adventure. Chris still has to do a bit of work to get her completely road-worthy, but since he’s perhaps the most gifted mechanical genius we’ve ever met, we’re pretty sure she will be up and running in no time.

Anita, Mandi, and Sue Ann in their Thanksgiving finest.

Sorry there are no photos of this big move, since it happened while I was peeling potatoes for Thanksgiving. But, we do have a picture of something we retrieved, which is a lovely pastel picture of a shotgun shack surrounded by bluebonnets that we found in one of the houses we renovated. Guess I’ll be getting that framed.

And I couldn’t resist sharing this photo of three Hermit Women in their Thanksgiving attire. Gobble! It was Anita’s one-year anniversary in Texas with us, so we had lots to celebrate.

Who knows what the NEXT adventure will bring? Not me. But we’re ready for it!

 

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