This is not a fun subject. How's that for a great way to start a blog post? Well, it's not. Nobody, even a ticked-off landlord, really wants to put someone out on the street, but sometimes you will have to deal with an eviction. This is a big topic, with more ins and outs than I can cover in one post, but here are the basics.

Eviction in Texas

There are four steps to evict a tenant that are required in Texas:

- Delivering a Notice to Vacate

- Filing an Original Petition to start a lawsuit against the tenant. (If necessary.)

- A court hearing.

- Filing a Write of Possession to order the Constable to remove the Tenant.

Naturally, there are rules attached to each part of the process. (And the best case scenario is that your serve the…

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Good property management is an absolute necessity of real estate investing though, on a day-to-day basis it can be time consuming and just downright maddening. Not everyone has either the skills or the temperament to do the job. If you're not a "people person" with strong communication skills, this is not something you're going to like to do. Not liking what you're doing generally leads to procrastination. Putting off needed management tasks is not the way to get and keep good tenants.

However, it's a huge mistake to think that if you hire a property manager you're not going to be involved with the property -- and a bigger mistake to actually not be involved. Yes, in theory, with someone else overseeing the place all you really have to do is:

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Last week we spent some time talking about the favorable investment and business climate in Texas with an eye toward having conversations with potential partners and financiers. The goal of most of us who are in investment real estate is the next "big" deal -- no matter how you might define "big" in the context of your personal plans. One of the things I find myself hashing around with business associates is short-term versus long-term opportunity.

After several decades of "boom," the "bust" that has plagued the American economy since late 2008 has many people leery -- especially people in real estate -- and especially anyone with a mortgage. It's tremendously important in these discussions to be able to make the case for long-term investment…

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Just recently I was asked to explain to some potential clients why Texas has one of the best business and investment climates in the nation. It wasn't an issue of finding something to talk about, but figuring out when to stop talking. This is the kind of information real estate investors need to have at their fingertips to negotiate conversations with financiers and potential partners.

First, and I especially like this statistic, Texans are entrepreneurs. The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activities is a measure of entrepreneurs per 100,000 adults in a certain area. Nationally, the number is 340. In Texas, it's 400. We have a large and growing economy, and we are actively seizing the opportunity to leverage that into an even more diversified…

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Every day it hits us. One depressing news story about the world economic climate after another. In Austin? We don't have a reason to be depressed. Trust me!

I've said it before -- and I'm sure you will hear me say it again -- Texas is among the few places that has fared well above the pack in this ongoing economic recession. And Austin itself has done even better.

Developers know that timing is just as important as location.  Right now Austin's city officials are frantically working to guide local growth over the next 30 years. Their plan is to push for development near key transportation hubs and, at the same time, to find real, viable solutions to Austin's existing traffic problems.

This city is growing exponentially with no foreseeable end.…

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Recently a good friend of mine realized that for business purposes, he better learn something about football. He's not a native Texan, comes from a non-football state, and found himself muttering vaguely comments during conversations that he hoped didn't sound stupid. He went out and bought a copy of Football for Dummies. As real estate investors, we could all do the same for our passion of choice, but our business is a little bit more complicated than football.

However, as I was flipping through his book, I liked the approach the author took in chunking concepts to slowly build an overall understanding. That's a very good way for new investors to become pros in short order while they're making money. For instance, how many of you get glazed over eyes and…

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Okay. Let's play show and tell. Have a look at this graph.

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What are we seeing? Proof that housing, as an investment, is less volatile than the stock market and highly competitive in terms of performance. Yeah. It jumped out at me, too when I received it this week in an email newsletter.

Here's the scenario. You buy into the SP500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average OR you pick up a median-priced piece of residential real estate in January 2002.

The SP500 index is 106.4 while housing is 110 and the DIJA is 115.4. Even though housing is currently down 25 percent, it hasn't taken as rough a ride in terms of peaks and valleys as either of the other indices.

And in comparison to the current 25.3 percent drop in housing? From January to…

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Although the Austin economy has proven itself to be almost recession proof, there are still investors who face problems going to the bank and getting approved for a loan. There can be a lot of reasons for that:

- You're coming out of a bankruptcy.

- You have cash and good income, but bad credit scores.

- Your portfolio of investment properties is too full.

In any of these situations, when you find a prime property and a willing seller and there's just not going to be a loan on the table, does that mean you're dead in the water? Not necessarily.

In the 1980s investors could avail themselves of assumable loans until the banks figured out they were losing money because they weren't reaping all the fees associated with new loans. When that source…

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Homework time, friends. On January 1, 2013 a new 3.8 percent tax will take effect on some investment income including real estate transactions. It's going to be important for you to clearly understand this tax, which is -- shock of shocks - complicated, which is why advise you to have a pow-wow with you own tax advisor.

I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of person who does better with real life examples. The National Association of REALTORS has put together a terrific brochure that outlines some scenarios in which the new tax will come into play. The link to the material is at the bottom of this post, but there are a few general things you'll want to keep in mind as you read.

First, where did this thing come from? It was passed by Congress in…

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