[00:02] we've got to talk about. Number one is coming from Folly, somebody who says that they live in Texas, but they don't think it's the best market for small investors right now. Their research is pointing them to New York for better
[00:15] appreciation. What should they do? Buy local or go to New York? We'll talk about that and I'm going to show you h how and what to look for in Texas. We'll also talk about the market in Texas and how to make money there. But I also want
[00:30] to talk about this. This is Bill's strange situation here where he's in strange situation here where he's in escrow for $725,000 on a deal that was escrow for $725,000 on a deal that was advertised as a fully functional uh or
[00:43] as having a fully functional functional accessory dwelling unit, which Bill intended on renting out when living there, helping him justify paying, you know, $725,000 for a property in Connecticut. And now 5 days before
[00:56] closing, we get a rug pull and it turns out, oh, that might not actually be permitted for you. It might just be grandfathered in for the current owners, but not necessarily you. And there's no guarantee it could be grandfathered in
[01:09] for you. So, we're going to analyze both of these situations and get to the bottom of exactly what to do. So, the very first thing we're going to say is that if you want to join this discussion and you want to add some commentary to
[01:22] posts uh like this uh about real estate, you want to chime in on this sort of that totally for free. You just download questions that I'm answering here. So, let's jump into this one right here. So,
[01:35] Folly, we're starting with this. This is the Texas one. And uh we've got this response right here that says, "If you've watched Kevin's early videos, uh he says, "One rule is that you should always buy within 30 minutes of where
[01:47] you live." And it's not solely just so that in case something breaks, you could that in case something breaks, you could go fix it. I actually never myself go and never have run to a rental property to go fix something myself when it's
[01:59] tenants. Okay? You don't want to build a relationship with the tenant tenant because that blurs a business relationship. But I've done a lot of work on properties before they're rented out myself with my own bare hands.
[02:12] Outlets, paint, flooring, I don't care what it is. So the 30 minute rule is really so that you could understand, hey, what's going on in this Craigslist transaction there at 9:00 at night? Do I feel safe in this
[02:27] neighborhood? Do I think, you know, a future buyer or a future tenant will? How is the area evolving? Is it on the upswing or the downswing? And that's where you have to be careful because it's really easy to look at properties
[02:40] do, right? We could be the victim of our our very own warning here. But what I House Hack and deploying, you know, essentially uh this hund00 million company worth of real estate assets,
[02:54] what we did is we flew to all of the markets we considered. So, I mean, we markets we considered. So, I mean, we flew to Atlanta, uh, Tennessee, Denver, Colorado, different parts of Colorado, Utah, different parts of California,
[03:07] different parts of Florida. I mean, we were all over the country. That's just a sample of where we were, Manhattan, you know, we've looked everywhere. You have to be there to understand on the ground what's going on, to meet people, to talk
[03:20] to them, to understand what's going on. The 30-inut rule shortcuts that for you. You don't have to pack your bags. You don't have to be in a hotel. The cost of that is insane. The cost of your time, the flights, the hotel, the headache on
[03:33] a small scale kills the ROI. Like you're better off just buying locally and then consider that your hedge money, [laughter] right? So let's think about buying locally in Texas. So Texas has historically had this sort of peak
[03:48] postcoid era that a lot of people have had to contend with of crap, you know, is is the bottom in? I actually think the bottom is in. So in Austin, Texas, the bottom is in. So in Austin, Texas, for example, we have now three times
[04:02] bounced at essentially the same levels. We peaked out at about 650 and we've We peaked out at about 650 and we've gotten down to 525 once, 512, 525, 525, and 518. So, in other words, the median home price in Austin, Texas has already
[04:18] hit this uh support level as if you're trading in the stock market where you just keep bouncing off the same floor, which some would suggest that the bottom is in. Doesn't necessarily mean we're about to, you know, rally with a 30-year
[04:32] Treasury at the highest level we've been at since 2007. It's tough time for real estate, right? But it's a sign that like the substantial decline, that 20 to 25% decline we've seen in Austin is probably behind us, which is good. That's
[04:45] Well, there are a lot of things we could do. I think the best thing to do is you go look for a local deal. So, for example, I just quickly opened up the Reinvest app and it took me like 3 minutes to find a deal that I'm like,
[04:58] "Okay, this is interesting." Doing a little bit more, you know, research on. This is a very early beta product. So, it's, you know, I always say today is it's just going to get better and better and better over time as we keep
[05:12] improving our software. And that's what we do. Like, just so you know, we're estate. You know, probably if you combine our liquid assets and real estate, we're over $und00 million just in assets with no bank debt, right? So,
[05:25] that's a company. We love buying houses, but we're also developing software. So whether it's the uh homes AI we call it or the stock AI products, you know, engineering on these and we're really excited about these. And again, they get
[05:39] better every day. So here's a property that I saw. I kind of this one kind of ah, you know, the carpet looks a little funky. There's drywall peeled off on the tub over here. You know, they didn't even close the toilet lid to go take
[05:52] pictures of it. like it's got that old like purple um uh the purple drapes which you know to me is usually a big red flag for or green flag I should say sort of original wood laminate countertop uh and these like foil
[06:08] cabinets with the old electric cooktop there uh or range I should say. All of that to me is like okay this thing has some potential. Now, the app here is suggesting you potentially have a $69,000 upside in value if you bought
[06:23] this. We'll play with these, but this is saying that you should spend $63,000 renovating it, buy it for $180,000, and your ARV, your after repair value be $312,000. Well, if that's true, I would rather buy a deal like that and hedge
[06:37] let the market do what the market's going to do. So, uh, let's go look up that property. I typed it in. I typed in Garland, Texas already over here. I I typed it in uh for for sale properties. Here's the neighborhood. Now, one thing
[06:51] to keep in mind is this backs up to whatever this is. This northwest road right here, that doesn't look like a highway. The 635 looks like a highway. Okay. So, but it does sort of corner up to what looks like maybe a four-lane
[07:06] to what looks like maybe a four-lane road over here. Uh, that's better than straight up because you really only have this edge corner with the plants or whatever. Okay, not bad. This puppy is listed for $180,000.
[07:21] At first glance, just looking in the neighborhood, that is over $100,000 less expensive for $1,800 ft². 4bedroom, probably 2 and 1 half bath. So, I've got an extra bedroom and another 150 ft compared to this place listed for 310
[07:36] right here, which, you know, doesn't even look that fantastic. I It's okay. I can't tell if those are mini blinds or 2in faux wood, but I I still got, you know, grandma's blinds over here. And I mean, I know this is thumbnail sized
[07:49] it looks like a roommate situation that's going on here. Uh, it doesn't actually I mean, look at this. Look at the flooring. It's literally like a the flooring. It's literally like a child took a knife across that floor and
[08:02] scraped all this flooring. This place looks like trash. You got the funky grandma drapes over here. Some crazy design, crazy situation going on the floor. This place is asking 310. Now, I realize it's just an asking
[08:17] price. So, an asking price isn't, you know, a sold comp. Duh. We know that. But, you know, that's crazy. That's 310 and we're at 180, [laughter] you know. And then I got this $315,000 one. All three of them have price cuts, by the
[08:32] market. Something to hedge. Probably because it's really hot, I'm guessing, right now. Uh, what is this? This is Garland, Texas. Weather. Let's just do a quick Google. Yeah, dude. It's It's 100 freaking
[08:45] degrees right now. So, of course, it's hard to sell a house right now. Uh, you know what? What's the What's the temperature right now? 9304 temperature outside. I don't know. I've been inside all day. It is 84. See,
[08:59] that's even toasty for us right now. Okay. So, here's one at $315,000. That's I mean, the flooring's trash, but it's decently moving ready. Let's say if you about $315,000. What did this say this place was worth?
[09:15] A You got to be kidding me. Look at that. The app told me this place is [laughter] That's pretty dang good, right? And I because if this is worth 315 with better flooring, it's still 150 ft smaller. We
[09:32] could be conservative. We got a fourth bedroom over here. So, I'd say 312 315 for this place probably, right? Maybe maybe close to 320, something like that. Okay. Problem is, we got to do some renovating on this. Uh, and we got to
[09:46] sold comps to see what things are actually selling for in the hood. So, I only have a two-bedroom comp in the neighborhood. And then I have this guy, which is weird that that's showing up as sold. Uh maybe
[10:00] it was a flip and that was its prior. Texas is also hard with market values. look at when they were pending and assume that it sold within a percent or two. So, this is about a two probably 60 comp. 260 comp for what actually looks
[10:17] comp. 260 comp for what actually looks like a flipped twobedroom that's 700 square f feet smaller but same hood you know usually I don't like comparing a two to a threebedroom but it's the same freaking hood and it's a recent sale so
[10:32] I could bracket that as a low comp right so I got 20 photos here on realtor.com it's flip grade that's your you know $2.50 50 cent Lowe's flooring.
[10:47] flip grade. I don't know why they rolled up the rug under the dishwasher right here. That drives me nuts. That's just like a little bit of a flip red flag to me. And and I don't think that face plate is seated appropriately against
[11:01] that countertop uh backsplash. But that's just me being really anal and critical. And they didn't do the yard, which it's 100° outside. not uncommon. which it's 100° outside. not uncommon. Okay, so 260 comp right here, let's call
[11:15] it. Uh we actually in our in our data, we actually get the Texas sales data in the back end, but I'm just looking at this as like a public consumer here. Here's a bigger one. So this one should beat us in sales price. So this really
[11:31] should be like over three hopefully. uh sold 310 is basically right at 3. Now that was at the end of 2025. So that was about a year ago. You know, is pricing
[11:45] really up from a year ago. 530 530 to 557. Yeah. 557 divided by 530. I'm up about 5%. Maybe that puts me into the threes. That's reasonable because if I
[11:59] it sold for 300, add the 5% puts me about 315. Hey, that's literally where one's bigger and we have to see what the condition is. Oh, those are old or original painted cabinets. So, that's not a flip grade
[12:14] condition. Multiple different floors. Is that it for pictures? The semig gloss ceiling. I do have a new window though. That's nice. Older flooring. That's nice. Older flooring. Eh, could be better. Oh, here we go.
[12:28] Cheaper flip grade. H, that's okay. I don't like the flooring at all, though. What the heck is that? Is that a mural? It is. That's funky. Oh, yeah. Acoustic
[12:40] ceiling and carpet over here. So, it's not even flip grade. So, honestly, 315 is a fair price because that flip grade would probably go for 3.40. So, 315 is a fair price. So, my point is, you know, here's an app or sorry, not an app. I
[12:55] property that took me like five minutes to find in Texas and to do an analysis to find in Texas and to do an analysis on. $63,000 for $1,800 ft². That's honestly probably reasonable. $63,000 in Texas for this budget. You know, we're
[13:10] not going to overspend on it. That's probably a reasonable $71,000 hedge. That's how to protect yourself. Buy low like that. [laughter] That's what I would do. I think this is a fantastic job right here by uh uh by the the
[13:25] wedgeinder we call it. I'm actually going to put other issues. Too good exclamation mark great analysis.
[13:38] goes to our dev team. It's more of a note in the background. But that was a that was freaking perfect. Uh now obviously not all of uh the things that our AI tool does are going to be that perfect. That was really good and it
[13:53] just happened to align with you know somebody asking a question about Texas. But that's my take on this Texas person. Now uh let's do this one over here. This person Bill, he's got this property that he's in escrow on for $725,000.
[14:07] So I already took some time and ran the comps on this. Basically I think that he's actually got a really good deal. the fact that he's in it for 725. I hope the seller doesn't see this video, but just for him, this is
[14:20] actually a good deal at 725 that he's picking this up. The reason I say it's a good deal is because this place, which is also about an acre lot, which is similar to the lot size that matters a lot in this area, a lot, pun intended.
[14:33] Um, this is a much smaller house, similar lot size, older home, but flip grade going for 680. So, you're basically getting 2,000 more
[14:45] So, you're basically getting 2,000 more square ft uh for $45,000 more, but you have this issue of did they sell you a property with an a legal ADU that they probably knew that and that's probably why they decided to take
[14:59] $725,000 instead of $799 hoping that, you know, you wouldn't find out. But you did right before closing. So, they almost got you. What I would do is I would go back to them and I would try to get $50,000 off
[15:13] on this because I think a it could potentially take me 50 grand of paperwork and time and headache to get that ADU permitted. But if I actually
[15:25] like ideally I get it permitted to where nobody else has to go through that BS again in the future. But if I actually get to go through that process, that's a big W if I could do it for less than that. But I want them to pay for that
[15:38] somebody's going to make me pay for that again in the future to get this sort of temporary exemption transferable to other people. So I would see a can I get exemption thing? Like I want it permanently permitted. What's it going
[15:51] that. Otherwise, I'm walking away, right? That would be my negotiation stance. If I could get this for under700 and I get a I get this thing for under 700, I am closing on this all day long because honestly, you've got comps that
[16:04] because honestly, you've got comps that suggest this could be an $850,000 home. Uh this is the comp that if you time adjust, it's a 2006 build, so it's a little bit newer. It's a little bit larger on the lot size and a smidge
[16:16] smaller on the inside, but this is a pretty decent comp right here that sold about a I want to say it was a year and a half ago or something like that. And so if I time adjust this one. Yeah. Okay. About a year and a month ago. If I
[16:30] time adjust this one, I think this one could easily justify 850. And it's a pretty decent comp for your property, which is great. That means you actually have an opportunity to put more skin on the bone for your deal. More protection
[16:45] for you, more of a hedge. Uh try to grind it down. Anything under seven is probably a W in my opinion. If I could go 675, my ego goes 10x because, you know, I look at this comp at 680, that's 2,000 square ft smaller, similar lot
[17:01] size, and I'm like, bro, let's go. Uh, that's my take on this. So, absolutely think you've got something good here. So, my take on these uh housing
[17:13] questions and uh as always, you're welcome to check out our homes AI tool and use the coupon code uh at the website. You can go to meatreinvest.com >> Why not advertise these [music] things that you told us here? I feel like
[17:25] >> We'll we'll try a little advertising and see how it goes. you. >> Kevin Praath there, financial [music] analyst and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great to get your take.