Key Takeaways:
- Company Education: Continuing education through attending the National Association of Residential Property Manager’s National Conference.
- Excellent property tax bill reductions for clients in our tax protest program.
- Tax Season is coming! Get your 1099’s electronic.
- Annual HOA Payments – Ensure we’re getting invoices.
- Sales Market Summary
- Rental Market Summary: Rollingwood properties rent a week faster that the median market performance.
Company Update – NARPM National Conference
Earlier this month some of our property managers went to the NARPM National Property Management Conference in Las Vegas. This three-day conference covers current trends in the single-family rental space, legislative issues coming down the pipe, and looking forward to the future to get ahead of changes and problems.
I’ll be working on putting together more in-depth write ups on what we learned, but here are a few quick updates.
- Big Beautiful Bill: This legislative change has some sweeping changes for our industry. We’ll be bringing you more updates in the future, but in the meantime, if you haven’t reached out to your CPA or tax professional, you should do so before tax season to discuss its impact on you!
- Lead Compliance with the EPA: Our firm is Lead Certified, and ensures all properties built in and before 1978 that come on board have the proper documentation. Did you know that we also require special certifications for our vendors to work on your property? There’s quite a bit of work that happens behind the scenes here!
- We heard from the current sitting Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing with HUD as one of the keynote speakers. It was interesting to get a behind the scene look at the inner workings of this important national organization and their work.
- Fraud and AI: This is a growing trend, and we’ve added additional safe guards internally to help combat this.
- And so much more!
Annual Tax Protest Results!
This year one hundred and fifty-six of our client’s properties participated in our taxable value protest program for their properties to ensure their properties tax bill is as low as possible. If you’re one of those clients, you’ll see your specific results in this month’s statement. I will say, this year had one of the best reductions in tax bills in a while, providing everyone some much needed property tax relief!
- The total tax bill that our clients will be paying has been reduced by a whopping $146,083!
- The per-property average tax bill reduction is: $936.43
- The cumulative taxable value reduced by a total of $8,051,086
- Largest Tax Bill Savings: $5,572
If you don’t see an invoice in this month’s statement for your tax savings, that means you’re not in our property tax protest program. If you’re not having your property taxes protested, please reach out to your property manager today to get signed up for next year’s protest list!
Tax Season and 1099’s
At this time last year, 45% of our clients had elected for Electronic Only deliery of their annual 1099 documents. This year you've helped us increase that number to 76%! This has allowed us to dramatically cut our paper footprint for the coming year's tax cycle. This increase in clients that have switched to electronic only also helps make the process vastly more efficient internally, and we appreciate your decision to help us reduce our paper footprint.
Switching to electronic only delivery of your annual 1099's is a huge win for everyone in the wonderful process of annual taxes!
- Saves huge amounts of paper products from being generated.
- Gives you year-round access to all your documents.
- Improves your data security by not running the risk of these documents getting lost in the mail.
- Helps make this process vastly more efficient and easier for both you, and your Rollingwood Management team! Our bookkeeper is incredibly thankful to you!
Annual HOA Payments
If we're paying the HOA dues for your property, please make sure that we receive an invoice for the year’s dues before end of January. If we don't receive an invoice from the HOA, we can't pay as we won’t know what we’re trying to pay, or to where. HOAs change management companies, annual dues, and billing addresses frequently, so we must ensure we’re receiving up to date information from them.
Please ensure we receive a dues statement before January if at all possible. If we receive it during January, we can still process, but must receive it before the end of that month.
Sales Market Statement with Mike Minns of Atlas Realty
Central Texas entered the fall with softer closed-sale prices and lower sales volume, but activity did not broadly freeze. Unlock MLS’s latest complete August report: the metro median sales price fell 6.4% year over year to $412,000, while closed sales declined 7.3% and pending sales rose 1.5%. Even with near-balanced inventory, we are still seeing a buyer's market, with 5.1 months. Financing remains the immediate affordability challenge: the national average for a 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 7.48% on October 13, nearly 1% higher than earlier in the year. The Fed’s current target range is 3.75%–4.00%. We'll likely see another increase in the Federal Funds rate later this year, but the Fed will likely skip a rate hike before mid-term elections.
Given inflation, the war in Iran, and tariff disputes, it appears we may not see a recovery for another 2-4 years. A recovery will likely require a different political climate in Washington, DC. What does this mean for buyers and sellers?
Buyers, you have the upper hand, but that doesn’t mean every seller will negotiate. Many homeowners still have low rates and jobs, so they may not be as motivated to negotiate as buyers might expect in a down market. It doesn’t mean you cannot find a motivated seller and get a “good deal.”
Sellers, to have a chance of selling in this market, you’ll need to make your house attractive. It must stand out from the competition, which you can do through upgrades and aggressive pricing. Buyers are looking for deals.
~ Mike Minns, Atlas Realty
Rental Market Statement
Something we keep track of as a firm is how our properties that turn over perform. One of these data points that’s critical to us is our median days on market, which means how long it takes us to rent a home. For us, it’s 20 days! According to the Austin Board of Realtors data, that median is 27.5 days. This means we were able to put an extra 7.5 days of rent in our clients’ pockets, which based on our average rent rate this summer equals an extra $650 in rent. You can see full industry trends here.
Market wide we’re seeing the usual winter slow down, however, something new this year is the use of move-in incentives. We’ve noted many properties on market now offering various types of incentives to help entice new renters. According to Realtor.com, in the Austin market, 70% of listings for 0-2 bedrooms are offering move in incentives. These incentives include things like:
• Offering updated / upgraded amenities (fridge, kitchen appliances, etc),
• Free rent for a period,
• Gift cards,
• Moving coordinating / cost reimbursement
For most of these incentives, if we’re offering them, we built in language to the lease that if the lease is broken or not honored, the incentive is due back in full to help protect our clients. Now as a firm, we’re seeing this competition is real. However, we work hard to ensure your asset is kept in A-Grade market condition so it maintains its value and can rent for the best dollar possible, to the best renter possible. We’ll be monitoring this trend in concessions into the 2027 leasing cycle to ensure we stay ahead of the trend.
Thank you for your continued trust and business!
Christopher M. Francis // Owner
Rollingwood Management, Inc.