All Forum Posts by: Curt Riffel

Are you currently renting the condos out to SMU students? Are the rents covering your expenses?

Hi William,

Welcome to Bigger Pockets! 

I'm a veteran and used MGIB benefits at UT Dallas for a Masters degree. I own a home in Richardson and would suggest Plano/Richardson if only for the quality of a UT Dallas education over UNT. It could be my opinion but I think the quality of UTD is higher than UNT. 

I think home prices are steady here but house prices are being overpriced and sit on the market for a bit longer than they have in the last year. Richardson is not a 'college town' and it may be tough to find student renters unless you are within biking distance of the school (0-2 miles). 

Honestly I don't know much about Denton, but for quality of life for a young couple I would think being closer to Dallas would be beneficial. 

Welcome to BP Santiago.

I live in the Chard and I thought there weren't many duplexes, triplexes, or quadplexes. However I saw two duplexes come up over the summer within a mile of where I live. Those units were in great locations and I wish I had my ducks lined up to make an offer when I saw them. I agree with your sentiments of being a hot market. However, it doesn't feel like we are crashing anytime soon, I'm still cautiously optimistic. Buy high sell higher? Frisco and Allen seem very pricey, there are lots of pockets of Plano IMO that you can possibly rustle a deal out of. As a younger person, I think growth will start bouncing south of downtown and in a few years when all of the highways are clogged, living in the far north will suck. Gentrification of architecturally unique and desirable homes in S Dallas will happen very shortly and has already started. The cool thing about Dallas though is we don't care much for history so any homes that are crappy will be torn down and they will build those boxy modern style homes. 

I live in Richardson, TX and had an HVAC person who literally lives 4 streets away from me, charge $800 to replace the compressor (which was under warranty, so he swapped it out at the dealers warehouse). It took him about an hour of driving to swap out the part and an 45 minutes to do the repair.  I was shocked at the price. 

I don't make much money, but I always try to make sure I am paying the lowest tax possible by contributing dollars that would place me in a higher tax bracket to my 401k. If you cash out early, depending on how much it is, it could also place you in a higher tax bracket. The difference of being taxed at 25% or 39% is substantial and worth considering. How to avoid 10% penalty Medical expenses for you or dependent College expenses for you or dependent Primary home purchase

Oh I see, well Ocwen has no reason to accept a short payoff when they are in 1st position, knowing the value of prop at $150k and their loan is at $96k. If I were Ocwen I'd sit tight, and if loan isn't paid, they could foreclose. But I'm not sure what's going on if the 2nd foreclosed, wouldn't they pay off the first so they have rights to the condo?

I would do what your heart is leaning towards and gradually raise the rents, albeit probably $50 instead of $100.

Not helpful to you at all, but I live in Richardson. I don't look for deals but I peruse the Zillow. I don't see anything around here either that would meet the 1% rule. On top of that the RE taxes are around 2.6%. I'm not sure how an investor would plan to buy a house at today's market rate and rent it out to barely cover the mortgage, taxes and insurance. Very little margin here, I feel the rental rates are suppressed. You would definitely have to find a deal and/or do some rehab. This sounds really negative, but I feel the people successful in the N Dallas rental market have owned the homes for more than 2 years when the home prices were 25-35% less. You can buy for appreciation, but be wary of bubbles.