Landlord-Tenant

Announcing CrosslandProperties.com – Property Management

September 23, 2010

Back in 2005 when Sylvia and I started CrosslandTeam.com and our Austin Real Estate Blog, we were in the process of taking a break from Property Management, having just sold our Property Management company the year before and taken a year off from real estate altogether. When we started back, we only brokered sales, mainly [...]

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Rental Moveout Walk-through in South Austin

September 2, 2009

Yesterday, September 1st, I walked through a rental property in South Austin that had been vacated the day before. I had my Flip Mino Video Camera with me so I decided to make a short video of the walk-through and share a few things about what I look for when walking a vacant rental property [...]

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How to Handle Tenant Deposit Disputes

June 29, 2009

As a green, freshly minted apartment landlord with zero property management experience in 1990, I one day received an abrupt and stark introduction to the world of security deposit disputes. This occurred roughly three days after mailing my first deposit accounting to a departed tenant, from which damage deductions had been assessed. The tenant response [...]

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Why I Never Do Move-out Walk-throughs with Departing Tenants

May 27, 2009

I recently had a tenant express frustration over the fact that I wouldn’t come meet him to conduct a final move-out walk-through at the rental property. I’ve been moving tenants in and out of rental property in Austin since 1990, and I’ve learned a few lessons in doing so. One is that there is no upside for a [...]

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Why I Don’t Like “Book Rate” Repair Vendors

May 4, 2009

My long time appliance repairman John at Austin Appliance informed me today that he’s only coming into Austin once a week now, and will eventually stop serving Austin altogether. He lives in Spicewood and mainly works Marble Falls now. Darn it. My veteran vendor team people keep getting older and retiring on me. John’s also [...]

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Austin Rental Market Update – March 2009

April 28, 2009

Average rents in Austin have taken a slight dip for the first quarter of 2009. The number of rented homes is up 11% over the same three months a year ago, no doubt due to the fact that many sellers are opting to rent instead of dropping prices below their bottom dollar. This creates additional [...]

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Tenant Eviction in Texas

March 29, 2008

I had to file eviction in JP Court on one of my tenants this month. I’ve evicted more than 80 tenants in Austin since 1990, but it’s been about 4 years since my last one. In the old days (the 1990′s) when I managed 4-plexes and some lower end properties, eviction filings were more frequent. [...]

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What to do when your home floods

September 7, 2007

This is a picture I took on Alcott street on South Austin November 2001. The day before, 16 inches of rain had dumped on South Austin. The tenant in the duplex I managed on this street called and told me his car had floated down the street and that there was 4 feet of water [...]

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Another Problem with Investing in 4-plexes in Austin

August 13, 2007

Today I received a call from an out-of-town Austin 4-plex owner looking for his 4th property manager in 2 years. When I receive calls from Austin 4-plex owners looking for a property manager, I tell them 2 things: 1) I don’t manage 4-plexes. Period. 2) None of the good property managers that I personally I [...]

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Austin Property Managers and Repair Kickbacks

August 8, 2007

I met yesterday with a remodeling contractor at a listing I’m preparing for sale. As often happens in Austin, he and I got to jawing in the front yard under a shady tree, talking about business, remodeling homes, Austin traffic, etc. More specifically, we ended up discussing property managers and what it’s like to work [...]

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