All Forum Posts by: Neil Narayan

Welcome to Austin :)

Check with Andrew Postnell at gateway Mortgage, he is pretty active on this site.

@Edward Pham I was in Austin in 2008 and in general what i saw was that where the West coast and most other areas the house prices were being impacted by the recession our prices for the most part (area dependent) stagnated a bit and then took off again. We didn't have double digit price drop in Austin since our economy is really robust and has multiple factors driving the economy and not just Hi-tech. The MLS sales data shows that as well.

@Account Closed I totally agree with your assessment, there is a lot of fear mongering regarding the recession. And i do believe that the stock market will see a dip soon. Tiger 21, one of the biggest investment firm ($75B in assets) is also expecting it and they are moving their money from the stock market to real estate and cash, waiting for a pull back.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-superrich-are-selling-stocks-buying-properties-and-keeping-cash-ready-2019-08-05?fbclid=IwAR3TILPCWuq1UCBN27VZu8pTNpyGTUjuo8dzr_UnpHBZEwOanVI1eql53_w

A bevy of negative news this week has once again stoked fear that an economic downturn is imminent, however recessions don’t always impact housing with the same force as the job market or other sectors of the economy. Looking at home prices during the last five recessions since 1980, home prices come down only twice (1990 and 2008), and in 1990 it was by less than a 1%. During the other three, prices actually went up 🤯🙌💵

https://www.curbed.com/2019/1/10/18139601/recession-impact-housing-market-interest-rates?fbclid=IwAR3T-JqDCJzH4Ie4D3M7e23mKFpZEKEZ1omNc-jGq83Q07fKBDIPrMmL7Ww

Based on what I have seen with my clients, most Duplexes are being bought by young investors who are house hacking (as that concept is being preached a lot these days in the investor forums and books). But the location matters too e.g. a decent duplex in South Austin or East will cost $400-800k so it will be bought by a more seasoned investor. 

When i looked into doing this a couple of years ago, home equity had less restrictions than HELOC. And also the type of property makes a difference i.e. non-warrantable condo vs SFR. If you need a lender to talk to PM me as they can give you the best advise.

Yes a separate account is not required for mortgage pre-payment. It is required for security deposit with the idea being that that is not your money and you are just holding it for the tenant (minus any deductions at move-out for damages). 

You are not required to setup a separate account for rent pre-payment just for security deposits. I like Bruce's idea of paying principal down if you can afford it.

@Matt Merill PM and I can give you the name of a lender that does flat closing cost fee that is cheaper than most banks.

If you have it in writing e.g. tenant sent an email to the seller asking them to fix it then that would carry more weight.