Striving to create a better life for everyone by sustainably solving real estate problems

(512) 807-8777

Tag Archives: owner finance

Thinking about Rental Properties

When the sale on this one is finalized, we’ll have to decide whether its future is a rental or a sale.

Why am I thinking about rental properties? Well, many of us real estate investors own a portfolio of rental properties. It’s the thing to do, according to all those classes we take and books we read. Because we are good investors, all of us at Hermit Haus have rental properties, both as a group and separately. We have them to provide a steady source of income that we can rely on, or as they say in the biz, cash flow.

A good rental property owner knows to take into account insurance, property taxes, any mortgage on the property, and anticipated repairs into account while figuring out exactly how much cash is going to flow. That’s smart.

Lately though, some of our properties have had one issue after another. The hot water doesn’t work. The air conditioner has a problem. Is that mold or just mildew from the recent rain? We want to replace the floor. Our drainage is bad. As you can imagine, that eats into the old cash flow. It’s hard to guess how much maintenance a house is going to need per year. Houses are like that.

Continue reading →

Hermann says please like and share!
0Shares

In Other Business…

Sue Ann, just sitting in front of her computer, looking for houses.

We’ve been looking under rocks and other heavy objects to find another house to work on. Meanwhile, we do have other things going on!

A Little Owner Financing

Lee and I had another little house they bought from our friend Larry, in Rogers, Texas. That’s one of the cute speed trap towns between Cameron and Temple. It has some very cute shops in its charming downtown (which you see, because you are driving very slowly).

The house is a tiny, charming little cottage that just needs a bit of work. We had hoped to sell it for cash, but our potential investor/buyers decided not to. So, we are selling it to the people next door to use as a “guest house” via our favorite cash flow strategy, owner financing. The contract is all signed, and now we just have that long wait until closing. Additional cash flow fits into the goals of our personal business (Hermits’ Rest Enterprises), so it’s all good.

We have also met with a few future potential clients and new home buyers looking for information. We are always happy to do this, because these people will remember us and let us know if they know someone with a sad house they need to sell!

Buying and Selling

While we are off buying small houses in small towns, Carol is still working hard on her personal real estate business. She’s had a couple of good sales, and at least one that took a lot of time and effort (the guy just wouldn’t believe his house was a mess). When we run into potential clients for more standard transactions, Lee and I always send them her way. We even have a young friend working with her to find a first home to buy.

Our phone line is always open, our Facebook is lonely for your input, and we want to know what you think!

Carol and Russ are also still living their adventure living in houses that are staged to sell. They have been all over the south part of Austin, and now have a lovely pool to look at, as the live oak trees drop all their leaves in it. I’m hoping we get a longer blog post on how that’s going, soon!

What Do You Want?

Are there any real estate investment, rehabbing, flipping, or negotiation topics that you’d like to read about here? Is there something we’ve talked about before that could use come clarification? Do you feel, as we do, that the new Sue Ann avatar doesn’t look as much like her as the old one did?

Lee is mulling over some stuff, so he’d love a topic to chew on in the meantime. Drop us a comment on this blog or Facebook, send us a Facebook message, or email one of us at our hermithaus.com addresses, and let us know what you’re interested in learning about.

And hey, if you know someone with a sad house, pick up that phone and call 512-807-8777!

Hermann says please like and share!
12Shares

Meadow Arbor 2 Is Available – Buy It!

This weekend we got the listing up for Meadow Arbor 2 in Universal City, Texas (near San Antonio). Russell was in San Antonio busily getting both this house and the St. John property ready to go on the market. The house is beautiful and would be a perfect starter home for any family.

The clean and open living area in this house is a huge selling feature.

For Meadow Arbor 2, he made sure all appliances were installed or on order, and put up signs saying it was both for sale or for lease. We’ll see which one works out!

It’s listed at $149,900, and there is the possibility of owner financing at 10% down, 10% interest, and 5 year term.

The Listing

Of course, you want to check out the listing and all the beautiful pictures that were taken for the listing.

We have put the listing on ListingSpark, which is a cool service for owner/investor sales. If you know what you are doing and don’t need an agent, but don’t want to go the For Sale by Owner route, you can sign up with this service, which provides you with a lot of services with fewer fees. Here’s what they say on their website:

We unbundled the traditional listing agent services and, at no additional cost, offered clients features such as professional photography, yard signage, a digital lockbox, and local market data. Our clients manage every aspect of their listings using our intuitive client dashboard. They also handle contract negotiations through our contract negotiations platform. Again, at no additional cost.

Real estate redevelopment friends, you might want to check out this service and see if it works for your next finished rehab project. We’d love to hear if any of you have been using it, and whether you’ve had a good experience or some challenges.

Hermann says please like and share!
12Shares

Rental Portfolio Progress

One of our goals is to provide quality rental housing at an reasonable price. To meet that goal, we look for potential rentals with an ARV somewhere around three times the median income for the neighborhood.

—with Lee Bruns

We think it’s important to have a diversified real estate investment strategy, so we have rental properties in addition to the houses we buy for rehabbing and resale. Carol and Russell have their own portfolio of rental properties, and Lee and I also have some. This is in addition to the rental properties we are building up for Hermit Haus Redevelopment.

We spend a lot of time working together and providing feedback on our rental properties. As I’ve mentioned before, many of them have had air conditioning issues this summer, and there have been other issues causing team members or specialists we hire to run around the state keeping the properties up. Russell enjoys using his handyman skills and does a lot of the repairs himself.

On happy bit of news came this week when we found new tenants to move into Villa Park 1, a big family to fill the house, which is great.  It’s a nice house, and we’re glad to have folks in there. Now we just need a renter for the rear unit, where Anita and I lived. Continue reading →

Hermann says please like and share!
0Shares

Re-thinking the Meadow Arbors

Amazing work done on this fireplace.

Number 1

For some reason, the Meadow Arbor 1 house in San Antonio didn’t get all that many nibbles, even with a price change. So, we decided to go back to our original buy and hold strategy and try to rent it out, some time in the middle of last month.

After a bit of a lull, interest in the house picked up, and as of this week, we have found a renter who met all of our requirements, and have a signed lease.

The income will be helpful over the next year or two, and we have hopes that we will be able to sell it for a good profit in a year or two.

front

The front of the house looks much more “alive” now.

Number 2

We are moving right along with Meadow Arbor 2, despite a lack of photos and the fact that Frank the project manager had a construction accident and had to have the tip of a finger re-attached. Yow! The team Frank found to do the renovation are fast workers, which we always appreciate. Too bad they will probably go back to commercial work after this job.

The exterior has been painted in the blues that Carol picked, and of course all bad wood has been replaced. It certainly looks 100% more interesting than it did before, especially the snazzy garage door! And the interiors are no longer many bright colors, which is a relief to the eye. We’ll have more interior pictures soon.

The garage is an aquamarine color.

We were just about to start pre-marketing that house as a rental, when our real estate person in San Antonio, Alba, got wind of a family who is interested in buying the house as an owner finance. Hmm! We’ll see how that works out! Good work on both the rental and the potential buyer, Alba!

(The picture originals are sort of small, but you can get the idea, at least. Thanks to Frank and his subcontractor for taking the time to get us some photos!)

kitchen

Here’s the kitchen all floated and ready for paint.

Hermann says please like and share!
0Shares