Growth and expansion is the name of the game in the vibrant and booming Central Texas area – none more so than Austin. The population increase signals one thing: more developments are coming. The Saint Elmo Public Market is one of those projects. And, it’s expected to open this summer!

 

In the works for some time now, Saint Elmo Public Market, located off South Congress Avenue in South Austin, is a place to shop, eat, meet and work. Here, strangers become friends and a neighborhood becomes a community. Once complete, the project will feature office buildings with ground level retail space highlighting vendors who wish to showcase their creative goods and services, apartments, a marketplace, and extensive parking structures. The developers of the…

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Update:

According to recent information provided by the Austin Business Journal, rezoning, permitting, along with possible removal of the current 1,000 apartments could likely take at least three years. Once construction begins, the Project Catalyst is expected to be built in five phases with five-year breaks between each phase to allow for immersion – taking a total of three decades to complete. 

Original: 

Jumping into the Austin development scene just six months ago was Project Catalyst, a massive mixed-use project at the intersection of East Riverside Drive and Pleasant Valley Road – basically next door to Oracle’s new Lakeshore campus. However, very little was known about the overall scope of the project.

 A still from the Project…

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As a landlord, you need to be prepared for anything. While the vast majority of tenants will be quiet, clean and polite (for the most part); almost every landlord that has been around for a while will have a story about at least one tricky customer.

Whether you have a drummer in a rock band who insists on playing loudly into the small hours, a tenant who is flagrantly subletting your apartment or someone who thinks they’re entitled to redecorate the property… you need to be ready to respond.

Then there are the situations where the tenant is perfectly pleasant but you need to change the terms of your contract for whatever reason. Again, you need to know how to proceed in order to secure the best deal for everyone involved.

Fortunately, landlords…

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Choosing to make an investment in real estate, especially rental properties, can be an incredibly rewarding decisions and business can scale rapidly.

Many investors start by purchasing a single rental property and leverage those assets into multiple properties creating a compound return on their initial investments. However, more property means more of a need for management of those properties. And as appealing as investing in properties can be, it takes a special type of person to be equally as passionate about managing them.

Property management can be incredibly time-consuming and very stressful, especially for newer investors. That’s why so many investors outsource their property management as soon as they can. Hiring a property management…

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Ensuring that you’ve found a quality tenant often requires rolling up your sleeves and doing a little investigating of your own. The right information won’t just come to you, and unfortunately, the typical verification methods are rarely enough. It’s easy enough to falsify rental applications, and not always easily recognizable, so landlords need to do their own research and double-check the facts.

To start, always run your own credit report. It may seem like the potential tenant is helping you out by providing a credit report for you. However, this option leaves room for the applicant to doctor numbers. Don’t take the risk: Just run your own report.

Along those same lines, double check the proof of residency and proof of employment. Today, most…

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Keeping rent prices at market value is as important to property maintenance as any other component of upkeep. Most rental property owners realize this is just a reality of the business. Unfortunately, tenants aren’t always as understanding, and they’re certainly never pleased. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a few key considerations and best practices for property owners to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Keeping Costs in Perspective

Costs don’t determine rent; costs determine whether or not property owners stay in business. Don’t forget that rent has as much influence on overall property value as maintenance and conditions. A property owner who allows rent to fall below market is essentially allowing their property to deteriorate, just…

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There is no questioning that Austin’s property prices have become quite expensive. However, there is reason to question whether or not those in the market for homes should find this so upsetting. When investors and homebuyers can get beyond the sticker-shock and take a look at the reasons behind the higher cost of real estate, those prices can become much more reassuring than disconcerting.

Over the past several years, Austin’s many thriving industries have resulted in major population growth, and therefore, real estate demand. Just last year, Austin's population exceeded the two million mark and is projected to go as high as 3.2 million by the year 2030. According to The Chamber's monthly Economic Indicators report, Austin is experiencing a 4.0% job…

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In this post, we will be expanding on our previous post in this series: common mistakes of first-time and beginning property investors. In the previous post, we discussed the idea of treating property investments like any other type of business venture and employing some general best businesses practices. We covered everything from the availability of cash reserves to rental potential, and the importance of knowledge of the market.

A major component of knowing the investment market is understanding how location relates to property value. We previously touched on rental potential and foresight. Often, new investors find deals and think they are paying a good price based on square footage, bedroom and bath count, etc. without having a good understanding…

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We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of real estate investors in Austin over the past few years. As you might expect, the low-interest rates and a growing economy have attracted more and more investors to our fine city. However, it’s not only those investors with backgrounds in real estate that are looking to cash in on the prime market. Many of these new investors are also new to the world of real estate investment generally, and we had them in mind when creating this month’s posts. With that said, novices and seasoned property investors alike can certainly benefit from a refresher on best (and worst) practices.

Cash flow is a vital element for any business minded, but especially when it comes to entering the world of property investment.…

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As previously discussed, valuation services like Zillow (or Redfin, Trulia, etc.) are an unreliable source of home value information. To summarize: these services rely on AVMs, mathematical models that generate estimates mostly from comparable sales data. Limitations in the model and data—especially in non-disclosure states like Texas, where sales prices are not reported—compromise the accuracy of those assessments. With a variable and sometimes extreme margin of error, such services should not be the basis for significant financial decisions. In states that do provide such disclosures, this is not an issue, but if you’re looking in Austin, it is. Make sure to check your states provisions.

Inaccurate AVMs are prevalent and easily accessible, often the…

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