Acquiring

You never know who is living next door. Not that there’s a need to promulgate any further paranoia of our neighbors, but it is good to know who is who in your direct vicinity.

Knowledge, after all (and as the cliché goes), is power.

And safety, or the feeling of it, is very valuable within all communities. Continuing along that line of logic, it’s important to your renters that the neighborhood they live in is relatively safe, especially from violent or particularly disgusting crimes as those perpetrated against women or, more importantly, children.

Among the many cool sites out there made available for us to search out our ‘hoods from the comfort of our homes, we have Family Watchdog and Family Beacon. You just enter the street, zip code and such, and then pow: up pops an interactive map with color-coded indicators of particular offenders: Offenses Against Children, Rape, Sexual Battery, and "Other". The details are pretty nice, too, including photos and descriptions of the offender.

I do believe I've actually seen one of the offenders near one of my properties.

Obviously this service is valuable in helping an investor when analyzing a new potential region for purchasing property, or for re-analyzing the marketability of properties currently in a portfolio. After all, safety is indeed a selling point.

But I do wonder a bit about the "Other" section being lumped in with rapists and such. Do I really want to get worked-up over a neighbor with a load of traffic violations? I mean, what is IN "Other"?

I’m currently dipping my toe back into the duplex market, back on the hunt. I’ve been particularly pleased with my current Tenant set, wondering why everyone else in the world doesn’t just leapfrog through duplexes.

Which, of course, led me to the interweb to find some contradictory, or at least counter-opinioned stories of duplex investing. I didn’t really find any true horror stories out there. I found the usual recommendations concerning repairs, Tenant selection and such. That’s all fine and dandy, but I honestly wanted to hear of some grizzly investing woes. Properties gone totally awry.

I found this story on Sitting Pretty Financially, one which I’d already read back in April, discussing the merits of different real estate investments (and a kinda healthy dose of bragging on the writer’s part, but that’s alright by me). She maintains the Duplex recommendation while giving fair warning on the dubious nature of Condo purchases.

Oh, Condos! Such the investment cad! So willy-nilly and difficult to pin down!

I am not a big fan of the Condo as a means of real estate investment. You own no land, just the rights to a piece of space above some land of which you may or may not own some miniscule number of voting shares for. Town Homes are typically slightly better, but only because they more resemble an actual home and there are fewer “owners� per square foot. Fewer cooks in the investment kitchen.

Regardless, my search was for duplex stories, and I stumbled one of the friendliest, most earnest approaches to landlord blogging I've ever read. And I read lots of them. This one’s called I Bought a Duplex! I can’t tell how long he/she’s been writing, or whether they'’ll continue, but it’s a rather good read!

Obviously nothing is dissuading me from my pursuit of another Duplex investment. Especially since I feel that we're passing the soft-rent plateau of the past five or so years, as rental rates continue to solidify under current market conditions.

Buying in downtrodden areas, with the intent to renovate and resell has always been the trail marked by flippers. And in most cases, it’s probably best that it stays that way. Long term rental investors and multi-dwelling managers usually get hammered in these areas if they march in, build or repair, and then see the property taxes skyrocket at a speed that far outpaces that of rising rental rates.

They get cash squeezed.

The Crossland Team blog brings up this point in a recent post. The area in question is in Austin, and I’m very familiar with it. I almost purchased property in its center. So I believe I understand all the pieces in play. It's a large section of central Austin that is mere minutes (if not walking distance) to downtown. From an outsider’s point of view, there’s no reason why it took so long to be developed considering how far the city has been built up on all other sides of downtown. But from an insider’s pov, there has ALWAYS been a stigma against that side of the city. “The other side of the tracks,� as it were.

Now, after a few brave investors headed the wave several years ago, investors took notice, started doing their homework, and they want to buy up lots of property fast, for quick high-end development. The frenzied dealing and bidding put upward pressure on property values, and those who have lived there for generations are now taking arms to battle the onslaught of “evil� gentrification. Continue reading "Anti-Gentrification Measures a Potential Boon for Landlords"

There are a host of web-based real estate tools out there for anyone looking to acquire, revalue, or manage their properties. What I see out there is that because of the last few years being dominated by moving of single family homes, almost all of these tools are geared for the buyers with that intention.

However, there has to have been some thought put into these online services that allows for them to be easily used by those of us who are in the business of finding, acquiring, and reassessing rental housing. Hm.

Neighboroo.

The apparent purpose of Neighboroo is to throw up some nice regional statistics such as Crime (they apply their own weighting system to this, giving more weight to "violent", versus "property" crime), Politics, Elementary School Rankings, Cost of Living, and Median Income per zip code, on a google map of the US.

The pros:

Very simple interface, with obvious left hand navigation. The data provided is actually useful in doing some very top-level, simplified analysis for a given region. Nice, quick snapshot. Plus, this is a brand-spankin’ new company, and I’m honestly not even sure where they plan on going with this. I just happened across it while searching for similar internet sites.

The cons:

Not really deep on the data side. Sure, it goes down to zip code, you can even type a specific code in and get your results in an arrowed bubble, but many times zip code isn’t precise enough a measure when sniffing around a potential new investment area. And the “Population Density� section concerning race is a bit, well, racy for my taste. For an investor of my variety, the only color I’m ever concerned with is green. The rest is a waste of my time.

Side note: What would be REALLY cool is if there was a time-warping feature where one could see stats like these from the past. Perhaps it would help clue an investor in on income/population/rental value trends. Perhaps.

All-in-all, I’m going to chalk Neighboroo up as a “work in progress, with much promise�.