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Tag Archives: Planning

We Had Us a Meeting

The unit on the left will hold shoes, not wine. But there are three wine racks (one next to the red chair), a wine fridge next to the cabinet, and spirits in the cabinet. Ahh.

Our directors (and Anita, since she lives there) had a meeting at the Bobcat Lair house last night. Carol brought us some Mexican food, and we had a nice time eating and talking about stuff that is not work! Russell also got to go inspect our “wine cellar,” which he helped put together. My son had just come by and finished building the big cabinet, so it was looking much more together. This morning I put the wine in the racks and the spirits in the cabinet, and it looks good. I even organized the wine by varietal. Fancy.

Carol plays with Vlassic, who actually appeared to enjoy it.

Back to the Meeting

Eventually, after coconut pie, feats of mental gymnastics by Russell, and a celebratory and lovely bubbly, we got down to business.

Lee called the meeting to talk about how our processes were causing us to miss out on deals in the hot Austin market. By the time we get them analyzed, they are gone. And Carol doesn’t have time to leap on them sooner.

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Trendy or Trend-Savvy?

hotel exterior

Some investors are converting older hotels into affordable homes. For young buyers who want to live in an urban setting, this is ideal.

Figuring out what’s current and worth implementing when we renovate is an important part of our jobs. We read magazines, look at houses (Carol even gets to look at NICE houses as part of her retail real estate business), and watch the all-important television shows (OK, that’s just for fun).

There’s more to it than just what paint colors to choose and what color fixtures to put in the bathrooms, though. We also are keeping a close eye on what kind of properties people want now, and what they’ll want in the future. Here are a couple of learnings that we are keeping in mind right now as we try to not blindly follow trends just to be trendy, but to look for trends that will lead to good investments of our time and money.

Need More Starter Homes

Our reading confirms what we have observed where we live: there are not enough units of housing available for people just starting out, and mid-range housing is disappearing as well. Traditional single-family housing is especially hard to find for folks who aren’t lucky enough to have inherited money or have one of those few well-paying starter jobs. That’s led to a trend for different types of housing. Curbed sums it up:

Whether it’s urban row houses, transit-oriented development, or a new type of tract housing, practical and affordable mid-market homes, as well as starter homes and affordable rental units for young adults, remain potential goldmines for developers who figure out the right balance of price, land costs, location, and amenities.

We are intrigued by the idea of creating new types of housing, and hope to figure out some in our Cameron property, which has some emtpy lots that could be turned into affordable housing of some kind, perhaps one of those with retail on the first floor and housing above, like I saw in Bryan last year.

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Statement of Work

A large tenant-occupied house.

You’re gonna be a beautiful birdie, Roadrunner! Now that I’ve got my SoW going.

I first learned about statements of work—or scopes of work, as some people call them—when I worked for one of the multinational computer manufacturers in Texas. Except they called them SoWs, and I wondered what we were doing with pigs. You can take the boy out of the country….

A statement of work, which I will breakdown and call a SoW from here on, is a document that details your expectations from your employees or contractors for a project. The more detailed, the better. We’ve learned the hard way that contractors will exploit any ambiguity to their own advantage, regardless of which side of the project pyramid it’s on.

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