All Forum Posts by: Michael Jones

@Chaithra Kumar yes, that's true. Depending on what you're going for, Temple/Belton or San Marcos/New Braunfels are my favorite submarkets. Austin is WAY hot right now and you'll definitely be buying at the top. The economy is strong, so there may not be much in the way of a pull back on prices. Just depends on what you're going for.

Hello Chaithra - glad to hear you're relocating to Austin.

It's a very strong market and you can't hardly go wrong. Austin is literally growing in all directions. What type of real estate are you interested in investing in?

It's going to be all over the place, but in this market, you're looking at a 4.125% - 5% interest rate depending on your credit score, LTV, and state.

The real question here is can you renegotiate these leases to be NNN (triple net) leases if they aren't currently. With a triple net lease, you're going to be able to push the taxes and utilities to the tenant to cover. That's a game changer and keeps your NOI and cash flow in tact in the face of ever increasing property tax bills in the wonderful state of TX.

What's the age of the building? That may dictate how far off of current code the building is and you'll be setting yourself and future tenants for a large upgrade bill to bring the building up to code. The city uses new tenants and permitting as a way to force compliance to code changes.

This could be a good deal, but only if you're able to push the taxes and utilities to tenants.

I recently brought on a debt partner who provided $300k in cash for a 5 year, unsecured note at 8%.

Hmm - usually nothing is zoned like that. You'll want to go directly to the city/county itself to verify. There are interactive maps online that will allow you to self-serve. The closest thing you might get to that is Commercial Neighborhood. Maybe some mixed use. Never ever, ever, ever, rely on someone's listing or a Realtor for important information. You can trust, but ALWAYS verify.

EVERY term is negotiable, so work the deal where you end up winning. Banks are beginning to shy away from some commercial real estate, but they're going to give you the best deal. You should not pay more than 1% origination and you can likely get away with .5% origination.

I just got done refinancing a $1.5M loan in TX for 4.70% fixed for 10 years and paid between .5% and 1%.

Just got directly to a depository bank. Not Chase or Wells, but a regional player.

Yeah - there's a fair amount that you need to check into. You really need to start with what your end goal is. If you are wanting to do commercial, but it's zoned industrial or residential, you could be cooked. Figure out what you're trying to accomplish and then locate the land. It's not a problem to rezone land, just make sure that you can actually do it. Not all land can be rezoned.

What part of Dallas are you looking at?

Joshua - from what I can tell, the current owner is just telling you whatever is the easiest/most convenient path. I've leased older buildings from a landlord and it didn't matter that the zoning wasn't changing. The city uses opportunities like this to force landlords and tenants to bring buildings up to code so that they don't have a massive aging problem on their hands. I don't know your relationship to this owner/landlord, but I can tell you it would be wise to not base any decisions off the information that they provide. They probably aren't being intentionally malicious, just wanting to offload any problems on to you.

@Jonathan C. I'm curious as to what you're trying to uncover?