The Check List

Posted on August 17, 2010 by | 2 Comments

In the last article called Picking a Rental House, I wrote about why we chose the house we did. In this post, I want to talk a little bit about the process of actually buying the house. I don’t know very much yet, but I’ll share a little bit of what I do.

In the end, this is going to be a good property for us if we’re able to rent it out, and keep it rented. That means I need to be able to do a couple of things:

  1. Find renters. I’m going to do so with a variety of on-line services, some word of mouth by us and the previous owner, and possibly a little bit through some real estate management.
  2. Keep them happy. We want to charge a fair price, and we want repeat customers. That means we’re going to bend over backwards to keep our renters happy. The previous owners did an excellent job of this.
  3. Keep the smoothest possible transition between the owners. We don’t want the water, or the power for that matter, to run out in the middle of the long, luxurious shower in the middle of the peak rental season, now, do we?
  4. Satisfy our partners. We need to keep some people happy, including the bank that actually thought it was a good idea to loan us money; the contractors that will make those repairs that showed up in the inspection, and the previous owners who can help us, but are not obligated to.

That means I needed…

a list.

I’m not the most organized person in the world, unless I have to be. But my wife is fantastic in that regard. On the way to the Texas coast, we broke out the iPhone and started writing. Slowly. With my fat, old fingers.

The Money Man

We started with the things that the mortgage company needed. Fortunately, our good credit scores and excellent bank (thanks, Amplify) made the process pretty easy, and they kept our checklists for us, and on line. We were able to sign and deliver most of the documents on line, and we dutifully packed up the documents and the kids to deliver the rest. I have to say it was the smoothest process to date that I’ve ever gone through. So this part of the list was mercifully short.

Honey Dos

Next, we focused on the short-term fixes we would need to make to the house. We set a goal of things that needed to happen pre-close and those that could wait until after. We wanted to handle all of the moisture related issues and anything electrical quickly. Also, a few safety issues turned up, and we decided to do a few of those things as well. Finally, there were some issues that probably weren’t a big deal, but we wanted to handle them.

Things like keyless entry. You can get a Kwikset combination lock for a hundred bucks or so at Home Depot, and that makes the management process simpler and more secure, because you can have the code changed when your guests leave, and nobody has to handle a key. And new smoke detectors, or batteries where they are needed. Codes change, and we wanted to keep up.

Utilities

We also made a list of utilities we needed, and built a schedule. We wanted to make sure that they happened uninterrupted. I’ll let you know how that goes. Truth be told, we may have started a little late.

Especially wireless. I mean, today’s customer can live without food and water for 48 hours, but take away wireless, and you’re in a world of hurt.

Nicities

The previous owners did an outstanding job of furnishing the place and keeping it nice. Still, we had a vision of adding a few things to the house, like beach gear, that would make the stay much more pleasurable. We have our list, and we’ll work on starting to accumulate some of the stuff. We want to add a big new wagon for lugging stuff to the beach, and also a few things to the kitchen that we will like to have when we are in town. Each new owner will want to put their own new stamp on the place.

In the next article, I will talk a little bit about the final rush to the close. I hope you’re enjoying the experience.

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Posted in Buying Our Port Aransas Beach Rental

IB Magee Beach Park

Posted on August 14, 2010 by | Leave a comment

The IB Magee Beach Park is located at the northern most tip of Mustang Island.  Consisting of 167 acres with 75 electric/water campsites and more primative camping on the beach, this park is a great place to beach camp.  The Horace Caldwell Pier is located in the park.  The pier, popular with fishermen, has a great observation deck to see the Gulf, the ship channel, San Jose Island and Port Aransas. There is a bath house available to campers as well as another beach bath house with a coin operated shower available to the general public.

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Posted in Fishing in Port Aransas, Port Aransas Beach, The Texas Gulf Coast

Port Aransas Beach

Posted on August 14, 2010 by | Leave a comment

The Port Aransas Beach on Mustang island has wonderful soft powder sand.  People bring umbrellas and shade tents for some shelter from that bright Texas sun.  Even at the beach, in the summer, it’s just really hot.  But, I would rather be really hot at the beach, than someplace else!  Some people attach kites to their shade tents which is a testament to that great Gulf breeze – those kites stayed up in the air all day!  What a great way to locate their spot after playing in the water getting carried down the beach from the current.  We recently were introduced to the beach umbrella anchor – a great invention.  If you don’t have one and have a beach umbrella, you need one!  It screws into the sand to give your umbrella just a little more stability in that great Gulf breeze.

As we all know, schlepping the beach gear can be a big challenge – the towels, the cooler, the umbrella or tent, the toys, etc.  In Port A, you can load your gear into your car and drive to the beach on the beach road. The beach road is between the dunes and the wooden post markers.  Parking is on the post marker side of the road. A $12 annual parking permit is required. You can purchase the permits on the beach, usually near an entrance road.  On our recent beach trip we saw a family using a heavy duty wagon (like the kind you might find for sale at Home Depot) to move their gear.  Since our place is walking distance over a boardwalk to the beach, we thought this would be a great alternative to loading up the car.

During the summer (Memorial Day – Labor Day) Port Aransas beach is watched by the Port Aransas Beach Guards from Avenue G south to Sandcastle Drive.

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Posted in Port Aransas Beach, Things to do in Port Aransas, Uncategorized

Picking a Rental House

Posted on August 14, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the first article in my series of buying a rental house.

As we spread out beneath the dwindling sun in Scituate, Ma, I was at peace, and surrounded by the people I love. I looked across my shoulder at my wife, and didn’t have to say a thing to understand that she felt the same way. Every happy line on her face was screaming so. I talked with my uncle about the five bedroom beach house and the market conditions that made its purchase possible. It was an eye opening conversation. I’d noticed the for-sale signs lined up like the endless relentless waves that pounded the shore. I had always considered beach houses to be the domain of the rich, an unattainable goal.

Clearly, conditions had changed, and there was opportunity. After talking to my wife, we considered the possibility that a beach house might not be just an impulsive buy. It might actually be smart. We decided to give this decision some serious thought.

Why?

Buying a house is a big decision. I wanted to shed some light on the sometimes dark and personal places to show you how we came to the decision to buy ours. I also want to talk about the business side of this decision. People buy a second home for many different reasons, and we had a Texas Gulf sized bucket of reasons to consider buying ours:

  • We have always loved hospitality. We have often had housefuls of youth or guests, and love to set up an environment that others enjoy.
  • We’ve long considered rentals as a possible business. Back when we were first married, we considered buying a house in the Northeast as a bed and breakfast. We didn’t have the financial resources to pull it off, but filed the idea away for later application.
  • Our kids are growing up. They are old enough to enjoy beach vacations, and we love sharing this kind of time with them. Our oldest is going into the 8th grade, and we feel like we have five more years of vacations with her.
  • We love the beach. We were told to buy a rental property in a place that you love to go. Chances are, others will love it too.
  • We think that right now, real estate represents a better investment than equities.

But there were also some risks to consider. The real estate market is far from stable; the very same forces driving prices and interest rates down are a weak economy that will impact the pool of renters. Beaches have storms; the Gulf coast has oil and possible spills; the wrong customers can hurt you. There was no hiding the fact that real estate always involves risk.

In the end, we decided to buy. So are we looking at this house as an investment or a second home? Well, yes. Both, I think. We definitely want this house to pay for itself through renters, but we also want a place that we enjoy going, and we want something close and spacious enough to share with our family and friends. We think any hassles will be worth it.

Where?

Having decided to buy, and understanding why we were doing this to ourselves, we started to look around. We did some reading about demographics. We considered getting a house in a college market like Starkville, Ms. (where I got my undergraduate degree) or Austin, Tx. (where we could live and manage the properties).

We then took a closer look at Scituate, and found that we could possibly buy a place for $500,000 or less, but that place would take lots of work and the peak rental season was short. We considered the Florida market, and found more severely depressed prices. In the end, we thought Florida was attractive, but there was risk with the Gulf oil spill and we would not be able to take advantage of the property with any real frequency.

Finally, we looked closer to home. We quickly zoomed in on Mustang Island and the surrounding areas, and South Padre with its surrounding areas. Of course, the beaches in South Padre are a little cleaner and bluer. You don’t have to worry so much about things like jelly fish and seaweed (though they were never too bad to handle for us).

Mustang Island

In the Port Aransas area, we had a location that was less developed, and that idea was attractive to us. We like NATURal better than HOTel. There were other advantages as well. Port Aransas is a four hour drive from our home, and South Padre is closer to seven.

But location is big for potential renters too. With any rental property, you need to understand who your customer is likely to be. Port A. gives us the Houston (2 million plus), Austin (1 million), and San Antonio (1 million) markets, to put more than five million people within around a four hour drive. That’s about what I’m willing to drive for a weekend, so it was attractive. We also considered the variety of season. Texas peak season runs March (Spring break), and May through mid September. We also get Winter Texans as potential renters. Port Aransas gave us the near perfect combination of a wide renting season and huge markets, with relatively scarce resources.

South Padre

This area has very nice beaches, and a nice proximity to Mexico. Though the United States renting population  close to South Padre is not as great, there is a broad pool of Mexicans who like to vacation in the United States. The water is a little bluer and clearer; the beach a little cleaner. There are no cars on the beach, either. It feels more like a big city beach than Mustang Island, and that has its set of advantages and disadvantages. In the end, it’s a nice beach, but it wasn’t our nice beach.

Mustang Island was for us.

What?

The next decision we had to make was what to buy. We considered a condo or a free standing house. We looked at both. As we honed in on Port Aransas, the amount of new condo development was concerning if we wanted to buy an inexpensive condo and be able to resell it, as new condos will come way down in price in a down economy, but they are not yet seriously depressed in price. There is 5-10 more years of development for condos in Port A, and we did not want to wait that long for our property to appreciate.

We did consider condos in a complex (we could generally get some very attractive rental properties that way) and free standing one or two family condos and homes. We eventually decided that it didn’t matter to us how the property was zoned. We’d find a place we liked. We also decided that proximity to the beach mattered, and it mattered a lot.  Location, location, location.

We also wanted a place that would sleep a lot of guests, and sleep them comfortably. We often travel to the beach with friends, and as our daughters get older, bringing friends will be important to them. Form a rental perspective, the number of comfortable beds is everything.

We finally settled on a three bedroom home (really, a free-standing condo) that slept twelve in three bedrooms comfortably. We could actually sleep more, if people want to take advantage of the various sofas and floors. The great sleeping accommodations make it cost effective for large families and groups and just about perfect for us.

So, we found the right location and the right set up, and now we needed to know the rental history. The owner had a good marketing plan and a good understanding of what it would take to keep the place full and had been very successful. We’ll tell you if what we’re doing keeps working.

I’m curious. What did you look for in your rental house?

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Posted in Beach House Amenities, Buying Our Port Aransas Beach Rental, Our Port Aransas Rental House

Port Aransas is for the Birds

Posted on August 14, 2010 by | Leave a comment

The Port Aransas area has one of the highest bird counts in the Gulf Coast.  My coastal bird knowledge, at this point, doesn’t go much beyond brown pelicans, sea gulls and sand pipers.  I have always admired the folks that can look around and identify every bird in sight. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people!   So, in anticipation of spending time in this birder’s paradise, I started researching places in Port A that could help me learn.  I am delighted to find that there are a great number of resources available in the area including some free guided walks.  Here are a few locations I plan to check out on our next trip to the coast:

  • Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center – On Wednesdays at 9 am you can participate in a free guided tour. The boardwalk is wheelchair accessible. Be on the look out for Boots and Bags, their resident alligators.
  • Joan and Scott Holt Paradise Pond – In addition to it’s usual residents, Paradise Pond is a great spring stop for the migratory warblers and songbirds. The boardwalk is wheelchair accessible.
  • Wetland Park – This park is home to water birds and cranes. The wheelchair accessible boardwalk leads to a lovely gazebo near the tidal flats.

Another resource to check out is the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Costal Birding Trail Maps.  This website is incredible with it’s detailed description birds and locations for bird viewing.

I can’t wait to grab this map,  visit these places, learn some more birds, and start putting my identification skills to work.

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Posted in Port Aransas, The Texas Gulf Coast, Things to do in Port Aransas

Port Aransas Beaches

Posted on August 14, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Though we’re not the beach connoisseurs that some of our friends are, we like our beaches. Each one has a different personality, and a different set of strengths. In Scituate, Ma, we like the waves on the rocks and the excellent photography and wildlife. Florida and Mexico beaches offer the brilliant blue waters and the perfect climate. In Texas, the beaches range from wild and uninhabited (on North Padre Island) to extremely developed (South Padre Island), with lots of different options in between. Our family likes them all, but we will always have a special place in our hearts for Mustang Island. The development is tasteful and subdued because of the sand dunes along the shore, and there’s plenty of beach life.

There’s a sand road down the middle of our public beach, a wide expanse of powdery sand, and the Gulf waves that lap at your feet as you stroll. A barrier of dunes (they are protected) separate most of the major condos and beach houses from the beach, and that usually means you’ll walk a little further to get wet. But you won’t be staring up at a long row of thirty story high rises, either. We like it that way.

The Port Aransas beaches on Mustang Island are the Port Aransas Beach that runs most of the length of the island (with lifeguards from Avenue G to Sandcastle) and the IB Magee Beach Park, next to the South Jetty. PA beach covers just under six and a half miles. This stretch has a sand road that runs the length of the beach for good access, so it’s fairly easy to bring in your heavier gear, though you will need a $12 beach parking pass.

We prefer to walk.

Working from the ocean across the beach, you have the ocean with a couple of sand bars that you can wade to, a shallow climb out onto the beach, a wide expanse of sand, trash cans every ten yards or so flanked by a sand parking area, a sand road that runs the length of the beach, protected sand dunes that are striped with occasional access roads or board walks, and then properties that range from single story homes to ten story condos. The point is that all of the buildings are set back fairly far from the beach.

The Water

The water is warm in the Summer, and comfortable earlier and later in the season than what you’d find on the Atlantic or Pacific coasts. The waters are also calm. The surf is variable, of course, but it’s generally pretty good. It’s a great place to boogie board, or when conditions are right, you can find decent surfing near the pier compared to the rest of the Texas gulf coast, though you’re not going to find the 20 foot monsters that you will on Hawaii’s North Shore. South Padre waves are generally a little better than these.

The Sand

The sand is powdery and fine, easy on the feet (though hot in the summer–wear beach shoes) and great for the kids, and irritating as anything for campers on a windy night. If you don’t want to take it home with you, it pays to find a rental that will let you walk to the beach most of the time.

If you like sand castles, and I mean really like sand castles, this is the kind of sand you want. It’s fine and the shallow gradient means you can easily dig down to the water table to get to the wet stuff that holds together. There’s a sand castle competition held every year called the Texas SandFest, and this is where the big boys come out to play. You would not believe some of the winners. This year, it was April 9-11, and should be around the next time next year. You probably won’t be able to park on the beach. We’re talking walkers only, with you and 100,000 of your closest friends. If you want to go, book early.

Sports

The beaches are expansive. They will give you room to spread out and fly a kite, play some pick up sports, or set up your own umbrella or shade pavilion. Beach soccer is fantastic there, and you’ll usually see a volleyball game there. The sand is so soft that it is tough to run in, though. We like to drive to the beach and set up early, and take a break during the hottest times of the day to return in the evening.

Location

Here’s a map with the location to the beach house. You can see the board walk, and the stretch of beach that we are on. Scroll down to the southeast corner (lower right) to see the boardwalk, and you can view the house from the beach view. It’s a great little area. With the windows open, you can hear the waves on the beach.

View Larger Map

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Posted in Beach House Amenities, Port Aransas, Port Aransas Beach, The Texas Gulf Coast, Things to do in Port Aransas

Beach or Bust

Posted on July 26, 2010 by | 1 Comment

Welcome to the Texas Coast Beach House Blog!

This blog will be dedicated to the newest member of our family, a beach rental property within shouting distance from the Texas gulf coast in Port Aransas. While we don’t love her as much as our two beautiful daughters, we do have a teen and a preteen, so some days, we definitely like her more than either of our true offspring.

Just kidding.

I think.

As landlocked Texans in Austin considering beach properties in Texas, we spent a lot of time on the Internet, but couldn’t ever find quite what we were looking for. We promised not to do the same thing to our renters, so we built this blog. If we follow though, our renters will have a great place to come that will tell you something beyond the sterile vacation rental listings that are about as diverse as the two star hotel rooms that litter the Texas gulf coast rental community.

I mean, we’re renting out a house, right? And if we wanted sterile strips of ocean front condos, wouldn’t we call this blog the SOUTH PADRE PARTAAAY?  Shouldn’t it have a little personality?

So we’re going to tell you about our house, and we’re going to try to capture the personality of the place. Whether you’re another owner looking for ideas, a potential buyer checking out Port Aransas, a past renter wanting to share some of the magic of your story, or a potential renter of our property, we hope to have something interesting for you.

Our first order of business will be to chronicle the buyer experience. We also hope to interview the previous owner of our place and some of the past renters, and get some Port Aransas basics up.

Next, we want to talk about some of the things to do in Port Aransas. Where should families go to eat? Where do the locals go on the cheap, or when they want a nice dinner without breaking the bank?

Finally, as we gather more research and experience, we’ll talk about our experience as landlords. We want to tell you what has worked for us and the past owners of this property. We’ll also walk you through some of the things that didn’t pan out as we planned as new owners.

We hope you’ll enjoy your stay.

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Posted in Buying Our Port Aransas Beach Rental, Our Port Aransas Rental House, Port Aransas, Port Aransas Beach