Renters and Landlords

New Apartments on Blanco Road and Wilderness Oak

October 11, 2018 by khproperties Leave a Comment

It wasn’t that long ago that driving by the corner of Blanco Road and Wilderness Oak, we began to notice crews marking trees and flagging utilities. Soon construction began on a set of new apartments taking up the entire block. As the apartments come together, we thought we’d share what we’ve learned so far about the new Los Robles Apartments since it’s just down the road from our offices (at 21232 Gathering Oak, #107 – stop by when you’re ready to lease and we’ll gladly help you what you’re looking for).

Los Robles Apartments will offer a variety of one and two bedroom units in several three story configurations at their site on the corner on Blanco Road and Wilderness Oak. A planned 312 apartments on 13 acres, they are self-described as luxury apartments with square footages ranging from 668 to 1,195. Looks like all of the apartments will have balconies, with second and third floor units having optional secondary balconies off of bedrooms. Initial pricing for one bedrooms starts at $1,080 and $1,505 for two bedroom units.

Amenities are said to include a resort style pool and fitness center, both typical in apartments these days, but there is also mention of a natural preserve Biergarten. This of course intrigues us and we look forward to seeing how this part of the amenities comes together.

Interior spaces look to focus on modern design elements – granite counters, wood-look flooring, stainless steel appliances, under mount sinks, tile backsplashes, and under cabinet lighting. Los Robles is still under constructions, so for now, there are only renderings and design mockups to view on their website, but are eager to see the finished product.

The apartments don’t come without some controversy of course. Built on a large wooded area, the space was stripped clean of most of the trees before construction began and local residents have voiced concerns over traffic in the area. As anyone coming down Wilderness Oak to Blanco Road (or southbound on Blanco Road from neighborhoods like Timberwood Park) can tell you, it can be quite congested in the morning and there have been way too many accidents on Blanco Road as people try to turn on to it from auxiliary roads like Gathering Oak (which has no traffic lights). A new traffic light is set to go in to help alleviate some of the concerns, but many residents don’t feel it’s enough.

If you’d like to learn more or need assistance finding an apartment, contact one of our agents and they can help you find the apartment that meets your needs and fits your budget.

Los Robles Apartments

20838 Blanco Road
San Antonio TX 78258
www.losroblesliving.com

image courtesy of condosccsca

Need Help Finding a New Apartment? Apartment Locating Services

November 19, 2016 by khproperties 3 Comments

If you’re in need of an apartment, the agents at Kimberly Howell Properties can help. Apartments are somewhat different than rental homes as they are not listed in our MLS like you’re used to with homes for rent. This seems to create a fallacy that local real estate agents can’t help you find them. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The agents at Kimberly Howell Properties can assist you with apartment locating services as well…and the best thing is, their services are free to you! Many renters think they have to pay an up front fee to an apartment locator, but that is not common practice here in San Antonio (we know some areas of the country work this way, but that’s not how we do business around here) and much like house rentals and sales, the owner pays the fees to have us help find tenants.

So next time you need to find a new place to live, contact one of our agents, and let them know what your needs are. They’ll help you identify areas of interest and apartment complexes within your budget, take you on a tour of some properties, and help you navigate the apartment office’s paperwork and needs in order to get you settled in. Long gone are the days where you had to spend hours on the internet researching, then a few more calling each apartment complex to find out their requirements, and then a weekend or two driving around town only to find disappointment. Let our agents do the heavy lifting and get you moved in with a lot less stress and worry.

image courtesy of Bernard Spragg

How to Spot Hot Markets for Real Estate Investing

July 8, 2016 by khproperties 2 Comments

If you’re thinking about getting into real estate investing, particularly buying homes for rental income, it’s no secret that you’ll want to find the hidden gems before everyone else. Buying in a neighborhood before it gets hot, at a low price, and being able to ride the wave of popularity as the neighborhood grows can be a great investment strategy long term and help you build your real estate empire. But getting in early isn’t always easy. The whims of taste and cool can change overnight and buying in an area that everyone thought might be up and coming may not pan out. There are some things to look for and with a little knowledge, research, and intuition, you may just find yourself sitting on the next hot property.

Real Estate Investing 101

The concept is simple. Buy homes at low prices that bring in rental amounts that exceed your mortgage payments and expense on the home. Your first step is to run the numbers. Need help with that? This post from BiggerPockets makes it so simple, you can calculate all the numbers you’ll need for rental property on a napkin. Like any investment, you want to see what’s coming in and what’s going out – the comparison of the two is where you earn (or lose) money on the deal. Some investments pay off long term, some pay off the day you purchase them. The goal is to be on the positive side as quickly as possible.

An important thing to remember is that these homes you’re buying are investments. As investments, you’ll want to protect them long term. Take care of them and they will take care of you. The biggest mistake we see new investors make is not taking real estate investing as a serious long term endeavor. If the house needs repairs, don’t ignore them. Those problems build up the longer you put them off and they can get much more costly the longer you wait. Regular maintenance of systems in the home will help you avoid costly malfunctions. Treat your properties well and they will treat you well too.

Spotting Hot Markets for Real Estate Investing

The first step is playing the simple numbers game – look for areas with low sales prices and higher rents. Be sure to check rental prices over time – are they rising or are they falling? Are there large amounts of rentals available in the area? How long do the rentals stay on the market? Look at individual properties – do they stay rented or is there a lot of turnover (and beware too much short term turnover, such as every few months)? The more you look at the activity in the neighborhood, the better. Your real estate agent can help show you the comps for the area, both rentals and sales.

Watch out for other investors who were looking to spot trends for real estate investing and may have misjudged the market. Look for homes that were bought and sold within short time periods. Were they improved and flipped or is someone cutting their losses because the area didn’t pan out? There may be bargains there, but buying a property you can’t rent down the road isn’t going to be to your advantage.

Listen. There is always chatter out there about what’s hot and what’s not. Look to where your target renter spends their time and listen to them. They’ll tell you where the trends are going. Social media can be a great tool for this kind of research. Read the business papers and see where developers are putting their money. You don’t want to wait until the last second though, so be ready to move quickly if you think you’ve spotted an uptick in interest. Of course, your intuition comes in handy here too. See something that just seems too good to be true or only one person seems to be gravitating towards? Remember, not all investors get it right and sometimes even the biggest projects fail.

When analyzing the sales data in a given area, look for days on market. Is there a sudden downward trend? When the average days on market starts to fall, it may indicate that investors are starting to snatch up properties because there’s something going on. Be careful however, as it may just signal a normal spike in activity. This is where long term trends can really help you get a better picture. Comparing the long term and short term trends can help you see whether this is normal or there’s actually something going on. Remember, when days on market trend downward, prices tend to move upward. Shorter days on market typically precede price hikes, so be sure and time your entry carefully, you never want to be on the growth side of prices.

Look to the commercial market. Corporations spends millions each year on market research. They don’t randomly choose their next location, so if you see development happening, you can be sure they see value in the area. Learn where the businesses are going in before they start building. Know your target renter’s likes and dislikes as well. Stores like high-end grocers and coffee shops are popular these days, so look for Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and mom and pop artisan coffee shops. The more you know about the local commercial trends, the better you can spot activity before everyone else does.

Connect with the city. Attend planning sessions, committee meetings, public hearings – the more you know about what’s happening in your city the better. Pay special attention to any meetings that involve the public being able to speak. Listen to their concerns and thoughts and get the insight on what’s happening in their local communities. Serve their needs and give them what they want and you’ll find yourself in a much stronger position. Listening is probably the investor’s greatest skill – the people will tell you what they want and need.

Finally, your mom was right when she taught you not to put all of your eggs in one basket. While you may want to purchase more than one property in a trending neighborhood, real estate investing is a long term strategy and trends do come and go. While downtown areas are experiencing a surge all over the country, there was a period where they were abandoned for the suburbs and suffered greatly for it. Spread your investments around so that you have a cushion of safety in case one area doesn’t pan out or finds itself suddenly on the “not hot” list. Like the stock market, some good planning will help you weather any storms that may come in the local areas housing market.

image courtesy of 401(K) 2013

Landlords: Don’t Download a Lease From the Internet

June 22, 2016 by khproperties Leave a Comment

If you’re a landlord or an investor buying rental properties for the first time, it’s easy to google and download a lease from the internet to use for your properties. A quick search for “texas lease download” while writing this post brought back 1.4 million hits. Leases are everywhere on the internet and we’ve seen them used many times. Trouble is, those leases often lack some of the most basic protections provided by the Residential Lease put out by the Texas Association of Realtors. The TAR lease as it is known by most agents has been tested and tweaked over the years to provide a solid foundation for your rental properties. We’ve run into quite a few situations where leases were hastily downloaded by an investor looking to save a few dollars, but when push came to shove in a court of law, they realized that the lease they had was pretty much worthless and that attempt to save a few dollars up front wound up costing them much, much more in the long run.

Obviously, whenever we write a post like this, we are aware of the self-serving nature of such – use us or face incredible difficulty…of course we’re going to say that, right? We take our jobs and our industry quite seriously and we recognize that there are plenty of people out there that go it alone without the help of an agent. We care for those people just as much as we do our clients, even though we know we can’t always convince them and they will still go it alone. We understand this, but because of the nature of our business and the things we see on a daily basis, we feel we must try to help as many as we can, so that they don’t get caught up and find themselves stuck in a sticky situation just because they didn’t know it could happen.

Don’t Download a Lease From the Internet

“Don’t download a lease” – sounds pretty ominous, doesn’t it? There are some good leases out there available on investment sites, but they are few and far between. Here in Texas, the TAR Residential Lease is written with landlords in mind and compared to some other states, it is definitely more favorable to landlords. It gives them a lot of protections and also outlines a lot of “what if” scenarios that most landlords wouldn’t even think of if they wrote one themselves. They are tested over time and rewritten by the Texas Association of Realtors legal team to adapt to new laws and as reactions to any lawsuits that have cropped up over the years.

The dangers when you download a lease from the internet come in many shapes and forms. We’ve seen everything from leases that attempted to rewrite the Texas Property Code (which you can’t do) to forgetting to cover some of the most basic circumstances you may encounter as a landlord. Most of the downloaded leases we’ve read are well intentioned, they just lack some of the finer points and it is those finer points that lose court cases. As we often teach our agents, when a lawsuit happens, it’s often less about proving you did the thing you’re being sued for, but rather building a profile of you as being negligent and unknowing of the laws that affect real estate. By proving you could have done it because of that negligence and ignorance of the law, a lawyer is able to sow the seeds of doubt in your abilities and therefore sway a jury to believe you did in fact do the thing you’re being sued for. Watch any court drama on TV and you’ll see exactly what we mean.

We’ve also seen more than a few “handshake deals” try to pass as leases. Texas law is clear – if it is not in writing it is unenforceable. Get it in writing, make sure all parties sign and date it and make sure you give copies to the tenants. Also, be sure you keep the copies stored somewhere you can find them later if you need them. Saying “I forgot where I put it” isn’t a very legal argument.

Tenants have rights too. Trying to remove those rights by writing clauses into a lease that negate those will always end poorly. Remember, when you’re facing a jury, you are seen as the big, bad slumlord and the tenant is the good guy. Everyone has a story about a landlord that they thought was mean and evil and it is those memories that the lawyers will play to in a lawsuit. It’s an uphill battle to start. If you’ve tried to remove those basic rights from a tenant, you’re going to lose.

The trouble when you download a lease is also knowing if you received one that is updated or not. The internet is one giant archive and if you download something written in 1999, it’s not going to hold up well to the law as it stands in 2016. Laws change over time and using something that is out of date or doesn’t cover newer laws can most certainly land you in hot water. We’ve even seen cases where a landlord downloaded a TAR Residential Lease (which clearly state they can only be used by members of the Texas Association of Realtors – your use of them can invalidate them if you are not a member), but they downloaded an older form. Staying up to date on these forms is part of what we do for our clients, so you need to make sure you do too.

Whatever you do, make sure you that if you do download a lease or write one up yourself, you actually get it signed. We’ve seen more than one case where an investor said they had a lease, but the tenant never actually signed it. No signature? You don’t have a lease.

What Happens With a Bad Lease

The obvious issue with having a bad lease (or one that is completely invalid) is lawsuits. You’re never going to win a lawsuit based on a poorly written lease that contains illegal or invalid language, isn’t signed, or lacks the particular protection you need in that lawsuit. Lawsuits are much more costly than the price of having a lawyer draw up a lease or involving a real estate agent to manage the property.

Another big issue we see with these kinds of leases is when the owner decides they want to sell. Investors will often sell their properties at some point for a whole host of reasons – that lease survives the sale and you must provide copies of it to the buyer. The new buyer is tied to the terms you set forth in the lease, so you may be binding them to something that is illegal or unenforceable. If the buyer does their due diligence, they may back out the deal and you will lose the sale. Even if they do buy it, you may be creating a situation where you may get brought back into the mix during a lawsuit as you were the one who initially set up the lease and created the issues the new owner is now facing. Being sued over a property you no longer own is not an ideal situation and a good use of your investment dollars.

How Can You Get a Quality Lease in Place?

As real estate agents, you know our first recommendation will be to contact a real estate agent that specializes in leasing in property management. These Realtors work with leases, landlords, and tenants on a daily basis and keep abreast of the laws and forms to help protect you as an owner. Much like not every agent is a commercial real estate agent, not every agent specializes in this field, so it is important to choose one that has experience in this highly specialized area of real estate.

The other way to get a strong lease written up is to talk to a lawyer and have them draft up a form for your use. Many of the leases available on the internet will say they were drawn up by a lawyer, but you should always be sure that it is drawn up with your situation and properties in mind and (we see this mistake made a lot) it is drawn up by a lawyer from the state you will be leasing in. A Pennsylvania lease differs greatly from a Texas lease, because the laws in both states are vastly different. We also recommend you speak to a lawyer that specializes in real estate – a divorce attorney can write a lease, but they may not have the experience and knowledge to write a strong lease that will protect you in the future. If you do have a lawyer write your leases, make sure you have them reviewed and updated frequently so that as laws change, you stay protected.

The internet can be an incredible source of information, but it can also have its downside. If you download a lease from the internet, you may be exposing yourself to legal action that you’re not aware of or creating a completely unenforceable lease. We recommend all owners read and familiarize themselves with the Texas Property Code, particularly Chapter 92, which deal with residential tenancies. Being a landlord is not quite as simple as collecting a rent check every month, but when done properly, it can be an excellent source of income and long term wealth building. If you’re unsure of what you’re doing, it can be costly and because it is a highly litigious field of real estate, being proactive in putting together your leases should be top priority.

Disclaimer: As always, we need to remind you that we are not attorneys and as such cannot give legal advice. If you’re unsure of what implications your lease has, please contact a lawyer. We’d be more than happy to recommend a few to you.

image courtesy of Sørn

Investing in Real Estate for Rental Income

May 23, 2016 by khproperties 4 Comments

When you’re looking to invest in real estate, particularly for rental income, you should always head into the process with as much knowledge as possible. Rental income can be a great way to generate positive cash flow, but renters are also putting your investment through normal wear and tear and perhaps much more. There is a careful balance between a rental that continues to generate income year over year and a money pit that can negatively impact the bottom line of even the savviest investors. Going blind into real estate investments is never a good idea and today, we have a cautionary tale from our very own Gail Overton. If you’re ready to make the plunge into the world of real estate investment and are looking to generate rental income, read on and learn from other first time investor’s mistakes.

Sylvia* purchased a home with the intent to use it to generate rental income for her new venture into real estate investing. She placed an ad on Craigslist and promptly found a renter. She was overjoyed; she could now sit back and watch the money roll in! Within 6 short months, her renters had vacated the property, but not before stripping the property of appliances, light fixtures, security systems, and even the kitchen sink! Making matters worse, they used the fireplace poker to poke a single devastating hole in each of the first floor tiles (1,200 square feet of tile). Needless to say, the place was destroyed.

Trying to save money, Sylvia opted to not pay for homeowners insurance (in particular, a policy designed to cover an owner who rents their property) assuming the renter would cover everything with renter’s insurance, something she did not require in the lease. She met with the police and reported the crime, but the police were unable to assist since she had no witnesses nor could she prove the renters had done the damage to the property. Having opted out of a homeowners insurance policy, she could make no claim for the damages or theft. The cost to repair and replace the stolen items exceeded $30,000 and the responsibility of paying that rested solely on her shoulders.

So what did Slyvia do wrong?

She lived 3 hours from the property and was unable to make regular checks on her property or the tenants
She used Craigslist to find the renters and did not do background checks, verify the tenant’s income, or run credit checks on the tenants
She undervalued the rent at $800/month when the average for her home in that neighborhood was $1,350/month
She did not insure her property against damage or theft with a comprehensive homeowners policy that included the use of her home as a rental
She never met the neighbors who assumed the renters were the owners so were not suspicious when the robbery took place

What should Sylvia have done differently in order to prevent this situation? What should you do? Whether you’re new to real estate investing or just adding to your current rental portfolio, be smart and make sure you’re covering yourself and your property.

Unless you live nearby and plan on routinely checking on your property, hire a property manager, they provide invaluable services to you as an owner:

Perform uniform credit and background checks on every tenant over the age of 18
Use regulated real estate contracts which protect both the owner and the tenant
Provide accurate rental rates for your property, so that you can price it correctly
Ensure the rent is paid and repairs are made
Can require renters to show proof of renters insurance
Renters call them with the headaches instead of waking you up in the middle of the night for emergencies
In the event a renter must be evicted, they take care of the necessary procedures on your behalf

Always insure your property:

In the event of a crime, you are protected
In the event of an accident on the property, your liabilities are limited
In the event of theft or damage, you are protected

Meet your neighbors! They are your eyes and ears and your first line of defense. Share with them your contact information or better yet, your property manager’s information.

Whether you’ve done it a thousand times or are just buying your first property for rental income, remember to work smarter, not harder. Real estate investing can be costly if you make the wrong mistakes, so consult with a real estate agent that has experience with investment properties or property management so that you can avoid some of the pitfalls that can come along and turn a great investment into a nightmare property.

* Sylvia is a fictitious name and is an amalgam of several different situations and stories.

image courtesy of Philip Taylor PT

Rental Scams: What to Watch For

February 18, 2016 by khproperties Leave a Comment

Rental scams were the topic in a recent warning by the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC), so we thought it would be a great time to cover some of the basics once again. Rental scams are serious business and we’ve seen quite a few here in San Antonio, some more sophisticated than others. Most of them work off the same basic premise, using rental listings placed on the internet, often at a price that’s much too good to be true. These listings attract potential tenants and then there is often some form of exchange of money for keys, but the keys never arrive. There are a handful of items that you can be on the lookout in order to avoid these types of scams and protect yourself and your money.

Grammar, language, and spelling. Not everyone is an English virtuoso, but like most scams, emails are often full of poor grammar, odd phrases that are the result of bad translations, and atrocious spelling. Scammers are getting more sophisticated though, so this isn’t always true…but it is a good sign that you might want to dig deeper.

Heartfelt sentiment. The person on the other end usually has a touching story about family or they’re a pastor or they just want to do something nice for someone. Any item that is tugging at your heartstrings a little too much is probably designed to do just that. By getting you emotionally involved, a scammer can play on your hope and optimism. While we know plenty of landlords that are good, honest, well-meaning people, the fact is, they are in the business of renting property for their profit. That doesn’t make them bad people, it just makes them good at business. Scammers love a feel good story and use them frequently, because it works.

Too good to be true. If the rental price for a house in The Dominion seems awfully low, it probably is. Scammers often pull properties off the internet and then list them below their value. The lower value attracts more people and gets them more chances at successful scamming someone out of their money. Combine the low price with the emotional heartstring factors mentioned above – “…we’re renting it out for so little because we believe that everyone deserves a chance, just like the one we got when we lost our home in the tornado that caused the mudslide that washed away our home and poor little Timmy…” and you can see how effective this can be.

Google the property. One of the best things you can do when you find a rental online and you think there might be something fishy – google the address. If you see the property coming up on several sites and the information is not matching up, you should raise the red flags. Also look for details like listing agent name, contact phone numbers, or emails. You want all these items to match up with the information you’re getting elsewhere. Google the name of the “landlord” or “agent” offering the property. Be careful though, many scammers use some pretty good tactics to hide their identity. From email spoofing to creating free email address (like Yahoo, Outlook, or Gmail) with an agent or owner’s name to sending very well crafted emails that look like the real deal (with headshots and logos and confidentiality disclaimers – we’ve seen some amazing ones), scammers try to make themselves look legit by mimicking the real thing.

Just fill out this form. If a landlord, owner, or agent sends you a typed out application in the body of an email (where they just type _____ to make a blank for you to fill out), run. Scammers are getting more sophisticated though, so some are using online applications – which are really just scam sites designed to take your credit card info when you pay the application fees. Also, you may have just given the scammer a whole list of personal data that they can use for identity theft. If it’s an online form, look at the address – does it look legit or is it igotyourmoney.thisiseasy.com?

Don’t send money out of state. There are few instances where sending a check out of state to someone you don’t know pays off. If the “landlord” is telling you they had to go out of town suddenly and you should just send the check to them there, you may want to think twice.

Work with an agent. Agents can help you find rentals and assist you with the application process. While not every rental ad you see online will be a scam, agents can often suss out what’s happening with a rental and if something is fishy, they can get to the bottom of it.

Whatever you do, if something isn’t sitting well with you, stop and ask questions. And if you think you’ve spotted a scam, let us know…we report all of them we find and try to shut them down as quick as possible so that no one gets trapped. Stay safe out there and good luck!

image courtesy of B Rosen