Flip Thy House

Oh Crystal Ball, Tell Me What the Future of Real Estate in Central Texas Is

One nice perk of my day job is that the bulk of what I do involves sitting in front of a computer, all day, bopping around on the Internet tubes and digging up/confirming a variety of business information. So not only do I get a heavy dose of business news online, but CNBC is on each and every workday.

Given my current “hobby” of buying and fixing up houses, I obviously perk up when anything housing related comes up, which is about every 7.2 seconds these days, with the media fixated on anything that has “sub-prime” or “housing bubble” or “foreclosure” in it. Based on the general tone of 90% of the articles and features on the housing market, we’re apparently completely and utterly doomed, working through the aftermath of the bubble of all housing bubbles and carnage from sub-prime and ARM fallout, and looking at years of declines in prices before things stablize, much less improve. Long story short, you’d be an absolute idiot to buy real estate right now.

Which actually might be a decent indicator that the worst is behind us, if you subscribe to the general investing theory that too many bulls or bears is a general indicator that the market is overdue to head the opposite direction. It’s hard to argue, though, that the housing market is still pretty rough sledding in much of the country, and the foreclosure numbers continue to be pretty ugly, with lots of ARMs still ratcheting upwards.

It’s also obviously very different from geographical market to market, too, depending on the circumstances. We pretty much missed out on the wild speculative frenzy here in Central Texas, and things continue to tick up pretty steadily. Whether or not that’ll continue (or if we’re just lagging the rest of the country as far as impending declines), who knows.

The point of all this babbling? With the Austin house sold, I can seriously start looking at the next property or two to buy, so I’m back at the precipice of convincing myself that I’m not an idiot for looking for a house to buy, fix up, and sell for a profit.

Unlike last time, though, it’s a much less daunting prospect. Despite my occasional whining here, the workload itself doesn’t scare me off, and it’ll only be easier this time around, as far as connections I’ve already made with contractors, lenders, etc. And, honestly, so far I’ve enjoyed the process itself, despite all of the sweat and occasional aching back.

The real question for me is more one of timing, as far as whether I should focus on buying a couple of rental properties in the short term, let some of the sub-prime/foreclosure ugliness flush out of the system, and start looking seriously again for potential flips properties in late fall/early winter. Or do I try to cram in one more flip before the market starts to slow later in the year, so that I have more cash to play with later when things get slow and people are desperate to sell?

But yeah, getting a bit ahead of myself, as I need to get the Main St. house sold and chalk up a profit before I start patting myself on the back. Hitting that fun point there now when all of the little things left to do suddenly start coming together quickly, with entire rooms finished, done, and crossed off the list.