All Forum Posts by: Owen Hehmeyer

The rules for triplexes just changed due to the Chapter 42 revisions that just passed a few weeks ago. Read the new Chapter 42 guidelines.

You actually did okay for your first time -- if you rent it out. Don't sell. I looked over the HAR listing and the renovation looks great, too. Given the location by the lake, I also wonder if a STR or MTR would also work, if allowed by the community.

Houston is on the cusp of passing big changes to Ch. 42 of the development code. The INTENT of the changes is to promote specific kinds of development like small multifamily (3 to 8 units), more ADUs, courtyard style development, etc.. Investors, how will the changes impact lands values and what actually will get built? Google "Houston Livable Places Ch. 42" or related to read about it of you are interested. 

Lisa, New Western is probably the biggest wholesaler in town. And as in all counties, the county foreclosure auction has the most non-mls properties of all.

@Mark Huneycutt Since you are worried about STR income loss, why not consider reducing your risk profile by leasing it to an STR operator on a two year lease with some sort of significant lease break penalty? You remain the owner, the holder of the permit, recieve income, etc. I am not familiar with the Nashville law, but seems to me nothing is stopping you from leasing your property to an STR operator who IS willing to take that risk. And you can sit back and relax while doing little work, too!

Thanks for the post. I made an offer on an Opendoor-owned house a couple of weeks ago. It had steady price cuts - the iBuyers are bailing and getting that dead inventory off their hands. Opendoor was cutting price like clockwork, every two weeks. I still didn't get the house though. I just can't bring myself to only get 5% yield on a risky house when my safe bank account now pays 3%. An I-bond gets almost 7% now! Of course, you could use leverage to turn that low yield into a mediocre return - but interest rates have killed that. I think prices will have to come down, rents will have to come up, or both. Since tenants are already at the breaking point (or past) I really hope that prices come down instead. One of my units is turning next month and rent will easily go up 5% since last year based on comps. I just don't see these rent increases as sustainable either. I look in Greater Heights and adjacent and I don't see anything appealing that could produce a cash flow at these rates (with normal down payments). Long term, as commercial office leases roll off, I'm super curious what Houston will do with the office space it doesn't need. Vacancy rate in residential is nearly zero and it is ~30%(?) for offices. Maybe somebody will find a way to turn those offices into apartments? 

@Julian Soro Sounds like you are not a native Texan. As a native Texan, I would never complain about bugs. Bugs are a fact of life, esp. after a rain. You may need to explain in your documents that no refund will be offered for bugs. Your guests from dry states need to understand it is normal. Still, sealing up tight will help stop bugs and save on your electric bill. Seems like a win win.

@Ryan Thomson The success of AirBnB and VRBO is due to the fact that the short term lodging industry was offering only one type of easily bookable product - 95% of hotel rooms are 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 living room, 0 kitchen. It turned out that there was a huge demand for multibedroom, multibathroom, 1 living room, 1 kitchen. It is hugely inefficient to have 50 AirBnBs scattered across town, and the resulting cleaning and upkeep charges actually make AirBnBs costly and low service. If every hotel converted 20% of its floor area to suite style multibedroom, multibathroom, 1 living room, 1 kitchen style rooms and made them easily bookable, they could beat AirBnB on cost due to the huge efficiency of being under one roof and offering great on site service. If and when cities get serious about making sure every AirBnB pays hotel tax, which they should, hotels will be in an even better position to compete. I am really curious if hotels can be retrofitted to compete with AirBnB, or if it is not physically/financially feasible due to HVAC needs. Would be fascinating to see. Profits attract competition, so maybe it will happen.

This is a good thread. I, too, have no solution beyond sign up and pay Centerpoint's charges, including deposit. It is what it is. For power, I have had good luck with Infuse Energy. No human and website made billing address not equal to servuce address easy. No issues with Autopay or mailing stuff to service address. Rate was fine, too.

I put utilities back in my name, including Centerpoint. I make sure to sign up for a contractless plan for power and Centerpoint allows cancellation at anytime. The new tenants sign up and when they do your account will close automatically. You won't need to do anything to cancel. Centerpoint's website is not good at getting the billing address right when the service and billing address are different. They keep mailing stuff to the service address. Make sure everything looks good online - don't count on snail mail. I never had to talk to a human and everything worked out.