Austin Affordability: The High Cost of Living Apart

Big Family Austin

In an increasingly “unaffordable” Austin, it occurs to me that many of us could live way cheaper if we could just get along and live in extended family groups or roommate groups. I’ll use my own family as an example to explore this CRAZY idea for curing Austin’s affordability problem.

Sylvia and I live in a home in SW Austin with a $3,000/mo mortgage. Our utilities average $250/mo for everything, plus yard care of $80 per month, and of course repairs and maintenance as needed. We intentionally downsized to this home from Westlake, because we want to live more “affordably” and we no longer needed to live in Westlake Eanes ISD after our girls graduated high school.

My mom, in her 70’s, lives three blocks away in a home I purchased as investment (but for her to live in). I charge her $1,200/mo rent (market rent would be $2,000, my payment/cost is $1,800/mo), and her utility bills average about $180/mo, plus lawn care. I cover the repairs and maintenance.

Sylvia’s brother lives in an efficiency apartment in Hyde Park, which is $1,000/mo, plus about $100/mo utilities.

My oldest daughter graduated college this year, has a salary job, and is living at home still for now, but plans to get her own place after the new year (and after saving some money first – smart move). A modest place would cost her $1,000/mo to live alone, or $800 if she pairs up with a roommate or two. But let’s call it $1,000/mo for a 1/1 to keep the math simple, plus $100 utilities.

My youngest daughter is a freshman in college, and I’m paying for a dorm room, so she doesn’t necessarily count in the equation, except for the fact that I’m paying for two places for her currently – her college dorm and her room at home for visits and during summer. So I’ll ignore the dorm costs and count her as living at home still.

So, in summary, we have mine and Sylvia’s 3 bedroom house, my mom’s 3 bedroom house, my brother-in-law’s no-bedroom efficiency apartment, my older daughter’s future 1 bedroom apartment.

That’s a total of 8 sleeping spaces, 6 bathrooms, 4 kitchens, 4 utility bills for 6 people and 5 cars. Total monthly outlay for mortgages + rents is $6,800, utilities $630, yard care $150, plus repairs and maintenance for two separate houses. Grand total $7,580/mo for 6 people with 5 cars. More about vehicle expenses later.

What if I just bought a 5 bedroom 3 bath house and we all lived together?

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New Realtor.com Agent Beta Profiles now Live in Austin

Map Showing Realtors who closed the sales

I attended the Presentation in Austin this week announcing the Beta rollout of Realtor.com’s new Agent Profiles. Austin is the only city in the US with this live, though it will soon also be turned on in the state of Rhode Island.

Though not fully baked, I’ve set up my profile. The “Sold Listing are not yet populating, but should be on the map by mid October. There will also be a Team Profile. Here is what it will look like when viewing a map of Sold Listings in Austin.

Map Showing Realtors who closed the sales
Map Shows Which Agents were involved in closed sales. Coming to Austin in Oct

Pretty cool, right? Are Realtors happy about this? Many are not. The Realtor online forums are ablaze with ignorant complainers, moaning and griping about this, and how it’s “unfair” to populate Realtor profiles or Sold Maps with actual closed sales because it makes the Newbies and part timers look bad.

Those of you agents complaining are missing some important data points. Namely, consumers want this. That is a settled question, supported by research and surveys of consumers. Realtor Reviews are here, whether we like it or not.

It was gross neglegence when the real estate industry fought online listings back in the late 1990s/early 2000s. It was the height of stupidity to do so. The void was instead filled by portals. Thus we have the useless but popular Zillow.

Zillow is not consumer-friendly. It exists for one purpose only, to sell advertising space to Realtors so they can appear next to listings they know nothing about. That does not create an informed consumer, nor connect a consumer to a “good” agent in their area, nor is it supposed to. Zillow is NOT consumer friendly. But consumers like the entertainment value Zillow. It’s fun to surf and look at houses.

Realtor.com can be way better for the serious consumer though, as its data comes directly from MLS feeds, and now instead of finding an “Advertiser” agent, you’ll be able to quickly rule in those agents who are actually active and relevant in the area in which you live or wish to live.

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Some Perspective on Rental Property Cash Flow Disruption

Bedroom fire and flood
Bedroom below attic while lightening caused home to catch on fire

About a year ago, Sept 2014, during a violent Austin thunder storm, a rental property I personally own in SW Austin was struck by lightening and caught fire in the attic.

As the thunderous flash of light, noise and immediate smoke jolted the tenant out of bed at 2:30AM, he quickly realized that he was standing in water. The home was flooding, and also on fire, simultaneously.

Wow! Wake up!! His elderly mother was visiting and he was able to get her and his son out quickly as the house filled with smoke. Then he called 911. Then me.

I showed up around 3:15AM, sloshed through about 18 inches of water at my driveway, as about 6 firetrucks were on the scene. It was an apocalyptic scene, like out of a movie. But everyone was ok, and the fire was contained to mostly the attic and three bedrooms. But the home was rendered uninhabitable.

Of course the tenant had to move out, insurance got involved, and a year later I’m just now getting ready to re-rent the home. Insurance only paid 4 months of lost rent, and denied my appeal for more, not accepting my explanations of why the job took longer. So, as it stands, I’m out of pocket 8 months rent ($12K) and about $8K more after insurance deductibles and other snafus that I won’t go into. Plus whatever continued vacancy loss I incur until I place a new tenant.

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Texas Buyer Inspection Deadline to Move to 5PM Instead of Midnight

Inspection Deadline

One of the more vexing and frustrating aspects of managing a Texas real estate transaction is what we agents call “clearing the Option Period”. The Option/Inspection Period is the agreed upon number of days during which a Buyer can unilaterally terminate the purchase contract. It’s usually 5-10 days.

The buyer doesn’t need a reason. It’s a straight up right to terminate, for which the seller is paid a nominal fee, usually less than $500.

The problem is that, per the current contract language, a 7 day Option Period ends at midnight on the 7th day. I don’t know about you, but whether you’re a buyer, seller or agent, none of us like being up at 11:45PM waiting for an Amendment and wondering if the deal is going to crater. It’s one of the stupidest things we do, and nobody likes it, but it happens repeatedly.

A proposed change to the One to Four Family Residential Contract (sales contract) will move that deadline to 5PM on the final day. This makes me very happy. Agents need to learn to take care of business during business hours. Real Estate is not a 9-5 profession, but neither is it supposed to be the graveyard shift at the end of every option period.

From a listing agent standpoint, it’s not our problem, or the seller’s, if the buyer agent and buyer can’t complete their “due diligence” within the first few days of the contract. We do with our buyers because we’ve already talked to the inspector and know his availability, and we have plumbers, electricians, HVAC people who can do followup evaluations same or next day. Every buyer agent worth his or her salt should be providing these resources and pre-established vendor connections to their buyers. Those who can’t or won’t should get out of the business. 

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Leasing a Home in Austin TX – Then and Now

When Sylvia and I started leasing and managing rentals in Austin in the early 1990s, the business operation was phone-based. I had a phone, answering machine, and spiral pad on a desk in our kitchen nook. All business happened there. I also had a Windows PC, a 386 with a dot matrix printer which ran the DOS version of my property management software. If you don’t know what 386, DOS or “dot matrix printer” means, you’re probably less than 40 years old. Oh, it probably had a 2400 baud modem as well, and a 50 meg hard drive. It wasn’t until 1996 that I put up my first website and started using email for business.

All rental inquiries thus originated with a phone call to that one phone. It was a “single channel” communication system. Those callers either saw a yard sign or a 3-line ad in the Rentals section of the Sunday newspaper, and called to inquire. That was the extent of the entire communication system with regard to advertising a rental listing and taking inquiries. We did also have the Austin MLS, so Realtors could show our homes for lease, same as today, but if they called, it came through that same 1-phone system.

Today leasing inquiries come through multiple channels. So much so, it’s difficult to control, and impossible to manage manually.

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Zillow and Trulia Remain Irrelevant in Austin Real Estate Market

Real Estate Listing Syndication Austin

Both Zillow.com and Trulia.com could vanish tomorrow, completely – websites crash and stay down forever –  and it would make ZERO difference, at all, in the successful sale of any home in Austin TX, or elsewhere in the U.S. Period.

There is no hardship or selling disadvantage created for sellers or their listing agents if their real estate listings do not appear on these real estate entertainment and advertising websites because it is not the purpose of these consumer portal sites to sell homes, but instead to sell advertising to Real Estate Agents.

These consumer sites not only fail to cause homes to sell, the websites fail to create smarter, better educated buyers and sellers. Instead, they create consumers exposed to bad data, and too much of it. Including the ridiculous Zestimate, which everyone knows is inaccurate but which nonetheless remains the “favorite” feature of Zillow.com users, according to Zillow.

Thus, at a Real Estate Syndication panel I attended a couple of weeks ago in Austin, which included a panelist from Zillow, when asked about the fact that these websites often serve to simply confuse and mislead consumers, the response was that this is a good thing for Realtors. The Zillow panelist offered up that, by creating a mis-educated, confused consumer, Zillow is creating an opportunity for the Realtor to step in and straighten things out by filling the gaps and providing correct data and information.

We get to un-confuse the consumer as our value proposition, and for that we should be grateful. So, as a consumer, is it your desire to be confused and mislead, then have a Realtor “un-confuse” you? Or would you rather just get good info from the start?

Don’t get me wrong. These sites are here to stay. Like it or not. Bad and outdated data or not. That cow has left the barn.

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