In our continuing quest to find quality properties in quality locations  we welcome our new property at 2412 Southmore.

Located inside the loop, this building is a stones throw from the Texas Medical center (largest in the world!), and close to desirable spots such as Rice University, Herman Park, TSU, downtown, midtown, Montrose, and more.  This property represents our first in the area. It consists of 32 units — a mix of 1, 2, and 3 bedroom units.

Rents start at just $500/month.  As far as “bang for the buck” on rent and location, this one is likely our best.

We have literally no pictures that we’ve taken yet.  Apologies for the bad exterior picture.  And yes, the paint is terrible at the moment (some type of Army Surplus green?). Give us some time, we’ll fix it 🙂

(Photo credit from an old HAR listing.  Not sure from who)

 

While we wait for the lawyers to work out the details surrounding the closing, Fat Property has begun to upgrade and manage a new 38 unit property located 3802 Wipprecht.  This property represents our first sizable apartment complex outside of the Midtown/Montrose area.

The property is located just north of the Fifth Ward area of Houston, just a few miles from downtown, Heights, Montrose, and other hot areas.  So while it’s “close to it all”, we can’t say the location its in is our best.  However, it’s perfect for those wanting a large apartment close to everything, for a very low cost.

The building consists of 38 units, most of which are closed up and in need of work.  In order to jump-start this location  we’re renting large 1 bedroom upgraded units for $400/month*.

The units are very nice and our largest 1 bedrooms.  We’re putting in new appliances, new paint, new ceramic tile flooring, new ceiling fans, and more.  Pretty much new everything — and perhaps it’s overkill for a $400/month apartment but we want to do our best to get a good tenant base in there.  If this property were just a few miles south/west, they’d be $1,000/month.

If you’d like to apply for a unit, you know where to go. 

* $400/month rent is for those who have applied in advance and pay a full month rent as a deposit.  Otherwise rent is $450/month.  Picture is of the building today.  We plan on totally repainting the property as part of our upgrades.

Montrose and other areas of the inner loop of Houston are going nuts. It seems everywhere you look a new apartment or mixed use building is popping up.  So if rents are going up due to lack of supply, then surly all the new properties coming online will drive down rents?  Not really. Most being built are higher end “Class A” properties. Additionally, many of the properties are being built on top of where older more affordable properties (like the ones we own and manage) used to be.

KUHF ran an intersting story about this

(photo credit from story)

We admit it.  We’re deal junkies. We’ll sometimes do a deal just for deals sake.

In getting ready for taxes (boo!), we had to compile a list of all transactions we’ve done.  We had to note when a property was bought (and for how much), when it was sold (and for how much). An interesting number came about that surprised us.  Between the principle and the 5 1/2 years that Fat Property has been around, we’ve done about $15,000,000 in transactions. This is only the properties we’ve bought and sold as principle or as the company.  This doesn’t include properties we’ve helped buy or sell for clients who are using our serves for their own real estate transactions.

For the curious: We’ve purchased 34 properties and sold 14.  As you may know, we don’t like to sell property as our goal is to grow our holdings.  However, from time to time we’ll sell off a strategic property in order to pull out equity to finance additional deals (a side effect of being primarily self funded).

The $15,000,000 figure also does not include the properties current under contract to be purchased soon, which total almost $4,000,000.  Before the end of the first half of 2013 (as we hit 6 years old), we’ll be at over $20,000,000 in transactions done.  Not terrible for a first grader.

We’ve noticed a “downsizing” trend in the urban core areas where most of our properties are located.  People are moving away from the multi-thousand square foot monster pads located far away, and trading them for smaller units where they want to live.  Part of this is the increasing cost of fuel.  But the bigger driver is people wanting to live closer to work and play.

This trend is backed up when looking at most of the new construction in our favorite neighborhood:  Montrose. Many of the new units are much smaller than you’d expect.  This trend is being repeated all over the country, with some cities offering contests to developers to make the best small unit.

Here is an interesting story that shows this concept to the extreme:  New units that target 300 SF in size

(photo credit goes to the linked story)

Pretty interesting to have Houston in this mix. Read the store here

Photo is of a nice meal at Underbelly. It’s pretty amazing the amount of great restaurants we have crammed in a relatively small area (speaking of Montrose specifically)

Sorry to take a break from the real estate stuff. Sometimes you have to enjoy the rest of life. That’s actually not a terrible resolution for 2013.

We haven’t been this excited about a game in a long time.

We’re always asked “What do you have available?“  And that normally means pointing people to our tenant site which basically is more of a portal for our current tenants to log in, pay rent, view their ledger, put in a work request, etc.  Or for potential tenants to apply or view additional pictures.

With our new “Units!” page, we have on centralized page where our property mangers will do their best to list anything upcoming (and a few tips from our FAQ on how to get one).

Note that this page will normally only have units available now or in the next ~30 days.  If you’re looking for something 60 days+ days out we likely won’t be able to help. The exception being in our larger properties were all units are the same.  If you were to view a random unit and like it, you could put down a deposit for an upcoming unit that fit your desired move in date.  Contact our property managers for more info

So enough reading already.  Check out our new Units! page here.

Update:  Whoa, we had three units taken today already, only hours after making this page.  So two properties have been moved to “Recently leased”, but a new property has been added.  We’ll keep doing our best to make this page up to date.

Normally we don’t post on properties we’re going after — or even those under contract. The adage “It’s not done till it funds” rings true.  The only time we’ve done so is with Holman, and that was because we basically took over the operation of the property while we had it under contract.

However, since it looks like January is going to start off a busy 2013, here is a sneak peek at what we have going.  It’s part of our goal of expanding out of Montrose and into other quality inner loop locations (midtown, near medical center, 5th ward, etc.). Below is a few of those properties, in somewhat order of their potential to close.

Property #1: “Midtown”, just a few blocks from our Holman property.  This building will function as a midtown office and central storage facility.  However, it also has a few units on it just for fun.  This one is under contract.

Property #2: “Midtown”, close to TSU.  Not a large property, in the 10-15 unit range. This one is under contract.

Property #3: 5th ward. 30-40 unit property. We’re not a fan of this location in it’s current state. We normally focus on good areas regardless of current building condition. However, close (4 mile) proximity to downtown and proximity to schools, parks, the Heights, etc. make it worth the gamble.  Seller has accepted our offer, we’re just hammering out some financing details.

Property #4: Medical center area. 30-40 unit property.  We loved the location and there is a lot of opportunity to improve the area simply by investing in the several buildings close by.  Met the owner and, and know the agent. Both class acts. We should be able to get this done.

There are others…  a 50+ unit in an area we’re also not thrilled with, and a 40+ unit also next to the medical center.  We’ll comment on those if and when they happen. We also have several other projects that we’re keeping off the site for other reasons.

Fat Property is a Texas based company, with headquarters in Houston.  We’ve been in business for over 6 years – about as long as Gary Kubiak has been the head coach. In honor of the Texans making it to the playoffs for the second year in a row, we’re going to change our site to display various Houston Texans photos. GOOD LUCK TEXANS!*

*unless you’re playing the Chargers.  Sorry 🙂