What’s Up In Texas? We Are — It’s Boots On The Ground Time Again + A Seminar
Posted @ 12:33 am - Filed under 1031 Exchanges, Austin, Capital Growth, Cool Info, Dallas, Depreciation, Financing, Leverage, Real Estate Investing, San Diego Property Owners
Leaving Thursday for Austin, then Dallas on Sunday. I’m conducting a seminar Saturday in Austin.
Friday I’ll be taking a long and in depth look at a project or two. The numbers are lining up. We don’t like to recommend investments which haven’t had our own boot prints stamped on their dirt. The fourth dimension in real estate investing is what experience adds after all the before and after tax cash flow numbers have been analyzed. Numbers aren’t the whole story by a long shot. Quality of construction is merely a chapter, as is location.
It’s the gut feeling that comes after the romance of the first impression passes. There’s nothing that replaces boots on the ground. Having been there and seen that is invaluable.
I can’t wait to meet the folks attending the seminar. Excitement is having the Firestones hit the pavement in person. After the first cup of coffee of course.
Texas offers real estate investors many choices, as do most regions. I like the trends. One which seems to have legs is the migration from states to the north and east ending in Texas. There are more options than I have time over there. So far I’ve been able to sufficiently research both Austin and Dallas/Fort Worth. (Known there as the Metroplex.)
They’re two totally different worlds. Austin is San Diego with nowhere to surf, but a cool river. Dallas is, well, Dallas. It’s a big, big place — in population and size. It’s what they have in common that attracts me though. Locations harboring pockets of opportunity rich in potential.
It’s not hard to find property combining solid location with demand. When have you seen one without the other for very long? Add relatively high rents and we’re still not surprised, right?
In San Diego a 40 year old duplex offering a couple 2 bedroom 1 bath units with garages, will rent for $1,000-1,200 a side. They sell for $400,000-700,000. Our favorite Metroplex location offers duplexes too. There are some differences though. Real estate investors typically notice these differences.
The Texas duplexes offer 3 bedroom 2 bath units and garages. They’re brand new. They rent for $1,100-1,225 a side. The tenants are very solid. When you drive by on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after lunch, hardly anyone is home.
They’re all at work.
One more thing. The Texas duplexes are generally half the price of their San Diego cousins. Often less than half. The $500,000 SD duplex requires at least $160,000 to buy, including down payment and closing costs — that is if you want it to break even every month.
$160,000
That much capital in Texas will get you the following:
Imagine, if you live in a market like San Diego, how a tax deferred exchange into these properties would turbo charge your capital growth rate over the next 3-7 years. More likely than not it would put you years ahead of where you would be retaining he status quo.
Decisions this easy are what we look for in real estate investments.
The technical term is No-Brainer. 
We’ll take a look at some examples in Austin in a day or two.
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 12:33 am and is filed under 1031 Exchanges, Austin, Capital Growth, Cool Info, Dallas, Depreciation, Financing, Leverage, Real Estate Investing, San Diego Property Owners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
