Recently, we learned of a suit the city or state was filing or about to file in regards to one of our favorite properties (we don’t have many details, as we were informed by a Houston real estate blog rather than the city itself).

Rather than take too much of the front page, you can read our reply here.  Since we don’t have many details, the response was written quick quickly and might be updated as we learn more.

(as posted on our Holman property page)

We’ve now owned Holman for about a year and plan on having a “1st birthday” party on November 9th, 2013.  All Midtown/Montrose tenants are welcome to attend (we’ll e-mail out invite).

Over this first year, almost all the work we’ve done has been getting units ready for new tenants. Or doing a lot of ‘unsexy’ upgrades like plumbing/electrical that are never seen.  The whole time we’ve been working on the property we’ve wanted to make the place actually LOOK better from the exterior.  However each time we’d start, our team would be pulled away to get more units ready.  Now that most of the units have been upgraded, we’ve finally had a chance to get back to our exterior projects.  They include:

Gating the entry to the property (done)
Gating the courtyard (done)
Cleaning out the old courtyard area and installing nice path and landscaping (done)
Painting the steps that go up to each building entry (done)
Painting/repairing all the old railing (done)
Taking out the driveway entry between the buildings and planting new trees in that space (done)
Installing new sidewalks that lead up to the 1624/1630 steps (done)
Planting new plants — lots of them (done)

We still have some projects to finish up, including new lighting in the courtyard, sound system in the courtyard, and outdoor seating.  We’ve started the laundry room for the property as well as some of the surrounding landscaping.  Google Street view has some funny shots of what the exterior used to look like.  Here are some new ones (we’re not 100% done but we were anxious to get *something* posted as people who are interested in renting often look at the street view and believe that’s what it looks like today)

      

      

In support of our friends at Covenant House, Fat Property will be participating in the annual “Sleep Out”.  From their site:

For millions of homeless kids, basic needs like a hearty meal, warm bed, and safe shelter are true luxuries. Instead of knowing the joys of childhood, every day these kids face the life-or-death dangers of living on the streets.

Covenant House was founded over 40 years ago with the mission to help these young people. Today, Covenant House is the largest privately-funded agency in the Americas providing food, shelter, immediate crisis care, and essential services to homeless youth in 21 cities throughout the United States, Canada and Latin America.

Covenant House doesn’t stop at offering an immediate safe harbor. We strive to move each young person forward down the path to an independent adulthood, free from the risk of future homelessness. We touched the lives of over 50,000 young people last year alone.

We cannot make such an impact without the help of dedicated individuals sleeping out in solidarity with homeless youth to show them they are not alone.

If you’d like to contribute, you can do so directly to our own campaign or right to Covenant House.

 

Now that the 20 unit (“Big Trux”) is about finished, we’ve started working on the 8 unit next door.  It’ll get the same exterior face-lift (new siding, paint, windows) and interior upgrades.  This, along with a host of other “under the hood” upgrades like a replacement of the main plumbing line, leveling the properties, as well as a slew of interior upgrades (updated kitchens, central air, refinish the original hardwood floors, etc).

We’re big fans of the 3rd ward and are happy we can do our part to save some of these buildings that would have no doubt been blow up (as the properties next to them were, which are now empty lots)

(closest I have to a “before” shot.  We started very quickly so even my ‘before’ shot has the property with some of the old windows out, and new windows going in. We’re excited to save some of these old from fourplexes the wrecking ball. And if the city is reading this – yes – we have all our permits 🙂

 

Fat Property has continued to expand to the more Eastern part of the inner loop. Although this isn’t our first property east of Montrose/Midtown (we have properties in 5th ward and even a few in 3rd ward by U of H), this is our largest. It will also be our most extensive remodel to date.

This 20 unit building will have all it’s exterior siding removed, it’ll have new insulation installed along with new plywood sheeting.  We’ll re-wrap the property and put up new hardi siding along with a modern paint job.

Inside, each unit will have new windows, new central air, refinished hardwood floors (upstairs) or ceramic tile (downstairs).  Additionally, each unit will have new paint, calling fans, light fixtures, window blinds, and a host of other upgrades.

Rents will start at $650/month for a 2 bedroom.

Before picture of the exterior (as the before picture of the interiors are too scary to post 🙂

You can follow the upgrade process on our Truxillo property page

Fat Property is proud to join and support the Museum District Business Alliance.  Our goal as a company is to better the community we live and invest in.  This goal is shared by the MDBA

“Our Mission: To promote enterprise and the arts, making the Montrose/Museum District more attractive for businesses, residents, and investors by improving the public enjoyment of the area and combating community deterioration.”

If you’re a business owner in the area, we would strongly suggest joining this great group.

 

 

We’ve been getting a lot of inquires about our multifamily and single family properties for sale.  As our multifamily properties tend to stay full, and even our single family properties for sale are all rented, doing showings is difficult. We respect our tenants privacy and enjoyment of their home, as such our policies for showing might be a bit more than most buyers are accustomed to.

Before setting up a showing, we try to make sure that everything someone might need or want to know about the property has been supplied.  Financials, photos, descriptions  and answers to any questions.  But with all that, we’re often left with the question “When can I view the unit/home?”

So rather than say the same thing every time over the phone or via e-mail, we’ve typed up a page that talks about our policy when it comes to showing occupied units.  We call them “LWO” – “Listed While Occupied”.

So if you’re curious how you see the inside of our properties for sale, check out our LWO site

What are bitcoins?  Well, that’s not what this post is about.  If you’ve never heard of them, you (likely) well.

Fat Property is proud to announce a partnership with Houston Bits to start accepting rental payments using bitcoins.  More information will follow so stay tuned!

No one is going to accuse us of being professionals when it comes to staging (what’s that?), photographing our properties/units (done with cell phone cameras), or advertising in general (thankfully we’re in Montrose).

At our 56 unit Holman property, one of the units was used as our on-site office.  Of the 30+ units we’ve upgraded for new tenants, the office was not one of them.  This created a problem for prospective tenants that wanted to see what a ‘finished’ unit looks like.  When someone comes by, normally any finished units have people in them so they’re hard to show.  The other empty units are all being worked on so we end up showing someone a “UIP” (Unit in Progress).

So solve the issue, we decided to actually upgrade the office unit.  That was easy enough as our guys have done over 30 of these same units so far.  However, this time we decided to have it staged.  We got the guys at Showcase Staging to help us.  We’re happy with their work.  Not only does our on-site team have a nice place to work in, but we now have a unit we can always (and easily) show prospective tenants who want to see what an upcoming unit will look like.

Check out our Holman property page for more info.  A few of the ‘after shots’ are below.

      

     

We’ve recently bought our first property in Spring Branch.  A 46 unit mix of studios, 1 bedrooms, and 2 bedrooms.  While not the greatest looking building at the moment, this property is well running and almost full.  We plan on making mostly cosmetic improvements in the short term. Below is a picture we found online (and not exactly flattering).  As the property is improved, we’ll be sure to take some good ‘after’ photos.

Units start as low as $300 a month for studios, $400 for 1 bedrooms, and $500 for 2 bedrooms.

Spring Branch is starting to become more and more popular due to all the energy activity and it’s proximity to downtown Houston.  While we are still giant fans of inner loop locations such as Montrose, midtown, and Heights, we also realize that those locations are getting harder and harder to buy into due to limited supply of properties and increased demand from buyers.