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Sad News about Kerrville Folkways

Front of house

Exterior of the Kerrville house, showing the trees and attractive front facade.

This is a hard post to write. But, business is business, and people will be people.

As you may recall, we waited to close on this house since November. The IRS hurries for no one, and the house had a tax lien on it, which we wrote about recently. Finally that was taken care of and we had the closing scheduled. All seemed well. Carol and Russell were looking forward to moving in and working on the house.

Then, through no fault of ours, the Lakeland closing got delayed to be the day AFTER this one was scheduled. We’d planned to use the proceeds from Lakeland to pay for the Kerrville Folkways house. So, that set off a mad scramble for funding, a thing we’re sure many of our fellow investors will find familiar. We thought we had arranged for bank funding, but somehow didn’t convey that to the sellers, who were still expecting cash. Everyone was making calls to our bank, who, being a small-town bank, weren’t open very much, and weren’t sure they could quickly re-write all the documents. We asked to close on Friday. After all, we had granted the sellers multiple extensions of their closing because of the IRS. You’d think they could wait a couple of days for paperwork.

But no, instead they returned our earnest money and canceled the contract. I guess someone else could pay that very day. Nice folks, huh? Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be patient, I guess. We should have just told them to go jump in the lake months ago, but it was such a great location!

Real estate investing is full of ups and downs, wins and losses. We will move on, knowing that we now have the chance to find another place to work on, and Carol and Russell can find another nice place to live and fix up. When one door closes, another one opens up, and whatever other truisms are appropriate.

 

 

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What’s Going on with Kerrville Folkways?

kerrville folk festival map

This is a map of the most fun spot in folk music, Quiet Valley Ranch! It’s from a program.

You may recall that we have a contract on a house that we’re calling Kerrville Folkways, because that’s the name of the street it’s on. Besides that, some of us have actually attended the Kerrville Folk Festival here in central Texas, and we like it.

We got a signed contract on this property back in November, but we still haven’t closed on it. In February, we shared that we were waiting on the IRS (the tax people, if you are not from the US) to pronounce what it was going to do about a lien on the property. We have been diligently checking in with the listing agent every week or so since. You know, the government takes its own sweet time, and the needs of people to have housing, or to sell their houses, well, those aren’t really important to whoever is working on these liens.

Finally there is some news! It’s not the greatest, but at least there is movement. The selling agent finally sent an email to Carol that explained what the IRS came up with. Hooray for them! It turns out that there is close to $4,000 more owed to the IRS than our current offer. And the owners for some governmental reason, are not allowed to contribute this money. It looked like we would have to do it, or the house would toddle off to foreclosure, where it would languish even longer.

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Offers, We Have Offers

Will I miss this kitchen? Yes, I will. It’s functional and warm.

I don’t usually post twice in one day, but I can’ hold it in anymore. We have TWO offers on properties, and a closing on a property we are acquiring coming up!

First, the little Houston Street house in Cameron that we are joint venturing with Andress & 3 on has received an offer that sounds good. We’re hoping to pass that one on to someone who can fix it up, and use the proceeds to invest in more houses in the area!

Second, MY Braesgate house sold in less than a week, but I’ve been waiting to say anything until negotiations were complete. We finally settled on a price that is very close to the asking price, and I don’t have to make all the little repairs that I was dreading. In the end, I would have spent the money on repairs if it didn’t sell soon, plus another couple of mortgage payments. So I consider this a win.

Oh wouldn’t it be nice if the Bobcat house was finished before the closing on Braesgate? Or at least some of the rooms? I’m a dreamer, that’s for sure. As it is, there are two rooms just waiting to be stuffed with stuff if it’s not finished, so all is well.

And third, the closing on our Kerrville Folkways property that members of our team hope to live in when we’re finished is set for the middle of February. You can look forward to lots of rehab photos from that one in the coming months!

PS: In the BEST news yet! We got an offer on the St. John house in San Antonio! I’ll explain exactly how great that is in a bit.

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A Rockin’ New Project

Front of house

Exterior of the Kerrville house, showing the trees and attractive front facade.

We’re looking forward to working on our next project, which is a nice house in north Austin that’s been on the market for a long time. There are enough issues with this house that it was not selling in the retail market–some plumbing issues, mainly. So, we are getting it for a good price before it wanders off to foreclosure. It’s a “rockin'” house for two reasons: first, it’s sitting on one of our local karst formations, so the back yard is pretty much all limestone, and there’s a cool rock patio in front; second, the street is named after a local folk festival in nearby Kerrville. And we’re hoping to totally rock the renovation.

Our Exit Strategy

We know you want to know what the exit strategy is for this house. Well, we plan to fix it up and then sell it right over to our colleagues, Russell and Carol. The house is five minutes from Russ’s work, and is exactly what they’ve been looking for since they sold their previous “homestead flip” house. When this is done, Sue Ann and Lee, the Hermit’s Rest team, will be able to rent out the main Villa Park house for lovely income. Look forward to a longer and more detailed post from Russell on what exactly constitutes the homestead flip.

living area

Looking into the living room. Needs some paint and new flooring.

Background

Today I just wanted to introduce the new project and share a couple of “before” pictures. The good news about the house is that it was obviously one of the nicest homes in the neighborhood when it was built. There are some pretty impressive 80s features, such as mauve counters, white and gold shower knobs (wish I’d gotten a better picture of those), plush carpets (which are now all buckled up), and some fine but a bit old appliances. Each of the nice-sized bedrooms has a large walk-in closet. That’s such a great feature. The master bath is a bit crazy, so that’s going to be a fun challenge for our design team!

Living area

Another living area view. It’s a blank slate.

In addition, there’s a little office in what was once one of the garage bays, and a nice work area. The lot, as you can see in the pictures, is surrounded by beautiful mature trees, and all those rocks make it really low maintenance. I can see why our colleagues didn’t want to sell this one to anyone else.

The Plan

Carol’s still working on her renovation plan, but I’m pretty sure it involves knocking down a kitchen wall, a complete revamp of the kooky master bathroom, and some beautiful new floors that are not carpeted.

Of course, we will still be working hard to keep the renovation on budget and on time. We will share updates on the progress, including a Facebook Live video tour or two, so if you are not a fan of our Facebook page, you may want to head over there and sign up.

The current kitchen. Love that pinky-mauve formica. Not shown is the wall at right which may go away.

The current kitchen. Love that pinky-mauve formica. Not shown is the wall at right which may go away.

back yard of rock

The back yard. Take a leaf blower to those leaves, and you’ve pretty much got a natural limestone patio back there.

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