By Tom Branch, on December 29th, 2013  Plano Texas is a fabulous place to live and work. With companies and people relocating to Plano, there are more and more inquiries about rental and lease homes. Some people prefer to lease upon their arrival to give them time to decide where they want to later purchase a home.
Many of our relocation clients are executives looking to lease a luxury or executive home while they get settled into new jobs and the area. The good news is Plano has plenty of housing with local lease prices ranging from $1500 to over $10,000 per month.
Luxury homes are usually bigger, custom or semi custom built, located on larger lots, and many have pools. These homes offer top of the line amenities including hardwood floors, upscale kitchens, soaring floor plans, studies, media rooms, and game rooms. Lease prices start around $3000 per month and can be over $10,000 per month depending on the size, quality, and location of the property.
Click here to see all luxury homes for lease in Plano Texas.
Contact us at 214-227-6626 if you have questions or require additional information.
Photo: Licensed from Unique Exposure Photography
By Tom Branch, on January 23rd, 2012 
In Part 1 we discussed how rental price impacts occupancy rate and the impact that can have on annual cash flow. In Part 2, we’re going to explore how rental price impacts the quality of applicants.
Let’s say you have a rental property where the fair market rent is $1500 a month. If you list the property at $1600 a month, not only will you receive fewer applications, we’ll argue that those applications will be of lower quality.
Applicants with good credit and clean backgrounds do not have to overpay for a rental home. Since they can easily qualify, they will spend the time to not only find a well-maintained rental home, they will not pay more “just to get in.”
At $1600 a month, you’ll likely find that your applicants have credit or background issues. They want a decent place to live, understand they have issues, and are willing to pay more. It’s no different than a mortgage applicant who is willing to accept a higher interest rate because they have credit issues.
In some cases the extra cash flow may be worth the risk. That’s a call you have to make based on the total application.
Our recommendation is to price the home at market value to attract the largest number of quality applicants. One bad tenant can eat up lots of time and destroy a property. That little bit of extra cash flow just isn’t worth it in the long run.
Have questions or want to work with an experienced real estate team on purchasing or managing investment properties? Contact us at 214-227-6626.
Photo licensed from iStockPhoto
By Tom Branch, on January 19th, 2012
As a property manager I often have this conversation with my investor clients. I understand trying to get the most possible cash flow out of a property but this has to be tempered by two issues–occupancy rate and quality of tenants.
You might ask, “How are they related?”
In part one, I’ll discuss occupancy rate.
Occupancy Rate is defined as the amount of time a property is rented over a period of time. If your rental is vacant for one month out of the year you have an occupancy rate of 91.6 percent. You arrive at the occupancy rate by taking the time the rental is occupied and dividing it by the total time available.
As an investor you should never plan on a 100 percent occupancy rate. We typically use 85 or 90 percent just to be conservative in our approach.
If your rental list price is set too high the property will sit vacant for a longer period of time. Let’s assume you have a rental unit that would quickly rent for $1500 but you list it at $1600. If it takes you an additional 30 days to find a tenant willing to pay $1600, you actually lost $400. What?
While the $1600 rent generates an additional $100 in monthly revenue, you lost $1500 for the month the property could have been rented at the lower price. So, over the course of a year you generated $1100 in additional revenue but lost $1500 due to the vacant month. This results in a loss of $400 during the year!
A higher rental price is usually only profitable if you can rent the property in a similar amount of time. Otherwise you typically wind up losing money.
In part two, I’ll discuss how rental price also impacts the quality of tenants.
Have questions or want to work with an experienced real estate team on purchasing or managing investment properties? Contact us at 214-227-6626.
Photo licensed from iStockPhoto
By Tom Branch, on December 3rd, 2011 Frisco Texas is an up and coming jewel in North Texas. Frisco was named “Best Places to Live” in 2008 by Money Magazine and “Best Places to Relocate” in 2009 by Forbes Magazine. Located north of Dallas, Frisco has something for everyone–a great school district, major shopping, fine dining, loads of entertainment opportunities, and ease of access to major roads including The Sam Rayburn and Dallas North Tollways.
Frisco has plenty of available housing. There are apartments, condos, townhomes, and single family homes available. Single family homes lease from about $1000 a month.
Please contact us at 214-227-6626 if you have questions, need information, or want to schedule a showing.
Map: ©OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA
By Tom Branch, on September 1st, 2011 
With the shift from home ownership to leasing brought on by the aftermath of the mortgage crisis, more people see the long-term investment and cash flow potential of residential real estate as a good place to invest their money.
We’ve all heard the horror stories about the “tenants from hell” who fail to pay the rent and destroy the homes they’re leasing. These tenants cost the landlords an untold amount of money from lost income, expenses of eviction, and damage done to the properties.
The real question is, “How do we minimize the risk and avoid the tenants from hell?” You have to filter out the problem tenants before you sign a lease and let them take possession. The key is tenant screening.
Before I discuss the various screenings, I want to encourage anyone who is considering leasing their property to establish their lease criteria before ever advertising the property. By establishing criteria in advance and not deviating from those criteria, you can avoid most Fair Housing issues.
When processing applications, we try to verify as much of the information on the application as possible. We verify employment and income with their current and past employers. We verify rental history with their current landlord or we can see mortgage history on a credit report.
We then calculate the rent-to-income ratio. We use 30% as our standard. While some people can support higher rent-to-income ratios depending upon their total debt load, we reject any applicant exceeding 30%.
A credit report is pulled on every applicant. The data is used to calculate the total debt load against their monthly income. Our standard is 50% debt-to-income ratio (including the proposed rent). Once again, we reject any applicant exceeding 50%.
We pull a criminal background check on all applicants. We reject any applicant with a felony conviction within the past 5 years and misdemeanor convictions within the past 2 years.
Applicants are checked against the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Applicants on the OFAC list are rejected.
Last we search for past evictions. Applicants who have been evicted within the past 5 years are rejected.
While this appears to be a high standard for applicants, we find that applicants who meet these criteria pay their rent on-time and generally take care of the property.
If you are considering leasing your property, I encourage you to give some thought to establishing leasing criteria and putting a tenant screening process in-place. While this requires some time and thought, it can save you lots of time and money in the long run.
Looking for an experienced and effective property manager in the north Dallas area? Give us a call at 214-227-6626.
By Tom Branch, on June 17th, 2011 
While the temperatures have been at or above the 100-degree mark, I’m not talking about the heat wave in North Texas. I’m talking about the lease-home market.
If you’re searching for a lease home in the area and find something you like, you need to be ready to submit lease applications because the good, clean, and well-priced leases are going faster than new listings are coming on the market. You need to have completed applications and funds ready for the application fee.
Search for Lease and Rental Homes in North Texas
If you’re an investor looking for solid income-producing properties, the North Texas market is a great place to be. Capitalization rates are on the rise, the local economy is stable, and with more people moving into the area, the demand for rentals is climbing rapidly.
Search the North Texas MLS
Have questions or need more information? Contact us!
By Tom Branch, on February 15th, 2011 Are you looking to lease or rent a house, townhouse, or condominium in the Dallas Fort Worth area? Check out www.ntxleasing.com.
As tenant representatives, we can assist you in your search, show you properties, and negotiate the terms of the lease. The best part is our fee is paid by the property owner!
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