Ed-Neuhaus on Kendall Creek Properties — Austin Property Management

1031 Exchange Into an Austin Rental: Rules, Timeline, and Mistakes to Avoid

Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

IRC Section 1031 lets you sell an investment property, roll the entire sale price into a “like-kind” replacement property, and defer 100% of the federal capital gains tax and depreciation recapture. Zero owed at closing. But you have exactly 45 calendar days from the sale to identify the replacement in writing, and 180 days total to close on it. Miss either deadline by a single day and the entire deferral is gone, you owe federal LTCG plus depreciation recapture plus the 3.8% NIIT, and you find out about it on next April’s return.

The Best Austin Neighborhoods for Long-Term Rental ROI in 2026

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Austin single-family rentals are running gross yields of roughly 4.8% to 7.5% in 2026, depending on the submarket. The national average is closer to 7% to 9%. So if you came here looking for an investor-paradise cash flow story, this is not it. (Sorry, not sorry.) Austin is an appreciation play with decent yield and very good tenant quality. That is the honest setup.

Lets get into where the money actually works.

Sell or Rent Your Austin Home in 2026: A Decision Framework

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A $500,000 Austin home that rents for $2,800 to $3,200 a month is renting at roughly 0.56 percent of its value. The textbook 1 percent rule says investors should walk away from anything under 1 percent of value as monthly rent. So by the rule every real estate book on Amazon repeats, almost no central Austin single-family home should ever be a rental. And yet plenty of them are. So whats going on right.

Self-Manage or Hire a Property Manager: Real Numbers for Austin Rentals in 2026

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A typical Austin property manager charges 10% of monthly rent plus a leasing fee equal to 75% of one month’s rent in turnover years, which on a $2,800 single-family home works out to roughly $3,360 to $5,460 a year. That is the actual price of hiring out. The harder question is what your time is worth, because self-managing one Austin rental house eats 40 to 60 hours a year of phone calls, screening, taxes, midnight emergencies, and trips to Home Depot, no matter what the rent is. Lets do the math the way I actually do it when an owner sits down across from me and asks the question straight.

When to Hire a Property Manager for Your Austin Rental Property

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The average rental property in the Austin metro takes 53 days to lease right now, and inside the City of Austin there are 3,378 active residential lease listings competing for tenants at a $2,351 average asking rent (Austin MLS data via Kendall Creek Properties, May 2026). That is the most important number a self-managing owner can know in 2026, because every extra week your unit sits empty is roughly $540 in rent you are never getting back. Multiply that out and you can see why the “I’ll just do it myself” math stops working pretty quickly in a soft market.

Austin Property Management Fees in 2026: What Kendall Creek Charges and Why

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kendall Creek Properties charges 10% of the monthly rent we collect on your Austin rental, plus 75% of one month’s rent as a leasing fee when we place a new tenant. No tech fees. No maintenance markups. No surprise line items at the end of the year. That is the whole pricing sheet (yes really, lets keep this honest from the start).

So if you own a $2,500 a month rental in Austin, our management fee is $250 a month and our leasing fee in a turnover year is $1,875. Total annual cost in a year you turn the property is roughly $4,875. In a year with no turnover, it is $3,000. Thats the number you can plug into your spreadsheet right now.

Property Management Fees in Texas: What You Pay, What It Should Cover

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Monthly property management fees in the Austin metro run 8% to 10% of rent collected, and the leasing fee for placing a new tenant runs 50% to 100% of one month’s rent. On a $2,000 unit, that is roughly $2,500 to $4,500 per year in total cost in a year with one turnover, before maintenance markups, renewal fees, or any of the smaller line items that quietly inflate a management agreement.

How to Set Rent on Your Austin Property Without Leaving Money on the Table

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A $50 a month miss on rent is $600 a year per unit, and on a typical 2-3 year tenancy in Austin that is $1,800 to $3,000 you will never get back. Push the miss to $100 and you are at $1,200 a year, $3,600 over three years, and that is before you factor in the renewal you also under-priced because you anchored to the wrong number the first time. Rent pricing is the single highest-leverage decision an owner makes annually, and most owners spend maybe 20 minutes on it (between glancing at Zillow and asking a buddy what they got last year).

Texas Rental Property Tax Deductions: The Full List Plus the Depreciation Math

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Residential rental real estate is depreciated over 27.5 years under IRS Publication 527, which means a $350,000 Austin rental with a $280,000 building basis (excluding land) throws off roughly $10,182 in annual depreciation deduction without you spending a dollar of cash. Combined with mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, repairs, and PM fees, that depreciation is usually what turns a cash-flow-positive Austin rental into a paper loss for tax purposes. Which is exactly the point.

Preparing an Austin Rental for the Next Tenant: The Turnover Playbook

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The average Austin rental took 53 days to lease in 2026 (Austin MLS data via Kendall Creek Properties, May 2026), up from 22 days two years ago, which means every shortcut on turnover prep costs roughly $77 per day on a $2,351 average asking rent. That math is the entire reason to read a turnover playbook before the current tenant gives notice. A well-prepared property leases inside 30 days in this market. An unprepared one sits 70+, and the gap between those two outcomes is roughly $3,000 in lost rent.

Tenant Stopped Paying Rent in Austin? Here's What to Do This Week

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If your tenant did not pay rent this month, the single most important thing you can do in the next 72 hours is document, communicate in writing, and stop yourself from doing anything that Texas Property Code Section 92.0081 makes illegal: locking them out, shutting off utilities, removing their property, or threatening any of those. That statute alone exposes a landlord to one month’s rent plus $1,000, actual damages, attorney fees, and court costs per violation. Most owners who lose money in a non-payment situation do not lose it to the tenant. They lose it to themselves, in the first week, by doing something the law calls “self-help” eviction.

Texas Eviction in JP Court: The Real Timeline and Cost for Austin Landlords

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A Texas JP court eviction takes 3 to 6 weeks from the day you deliver the Notice to Vacate to the day a constable physically removes a tenant, and the all-in cost on a $2,500 a month Austin rental usually lands between $8,000 and $12,000 once you count lost rent, court costs, attorney fees, and the turn after. The court costs themselves are the smallest line on that ledger. The lost rent is the big one. Texas Property Code Section 24.005 sets the 3-day default notice period unless the lease says otherwise, and the speed of the rest of the process depends entirely on getting that first step right.

The Texas Eviction Process: Notice, JP Court, and the 3-Week Timeline

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A Texas eviction for non-payment of rent moves through Justice Court (JP court) in roughly three to six weeks from the day the Notice to Vacate is delivered, and the default notice period under Texas Property Code Section 24.005 is three days unless the lease specifies a different period. Total out-of-pocket cost for an uncontested eviction usually runs $500 to $2,000 in filing fees, service costs, attorney fees, and writ execution before you ever talk about lost rent or turnover.

The Hidden Costs of Owning an Austin Rental Property: Real Numbers for 2026

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On a $400,000 Austin single-family rental pulling $2,800 a month in rent, your real non-mortgage operating costs in 2026 will land somewhere between $18,000 and $25,000 a year. Gross rent is $33,600. So before you ever touch a mortgage payment, you are netting $8,000 to $15,000 (and that is if you actually fund a capex reserve like a grown-up, which most owners don’t).

That is the math. Ed Neuhaus, broker-owner of Kendall Creek Properties (and also of Neuhaus Realty Group, a residential sales brokerage in Austin since 2007) has been doing this math with owners for 19 years. The number people quote when they say “the rent covers my mortgage so I’m cash-flowing” almost never includes the seven or eight line items below. That’s not me being dramatic. That’s just the Travis CAD tax bill and a roof at year 22.

Texas Landlord Maintenance Responsibilities: What the Statute Actually Requires

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Texas Property Code Section 92.052 requires landlords to make a diligent effort to repair any condition that materially affects the physical health or safety of an ordinary tenant, and Section 92.0561 creates a legal presumption that seven days is a reasonable time to make the repair. Miss that window after proper notice, and the tenant can terminate the lease, sue for actual damages plus one month’s rent plus $500, repair the condition themselves and deduct it from rent, or get a court order forcing you to act. Plus attorney fees if it goes that far.

Tenant Screening in Texas: The Six-Step Process That Keeps Owners Out of Court

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The cost of a bad tenant in Austin in 2026 starts around $5,000 and tops out somewhere north of $15,000 once you factor in eviction filing fees, attorney costs, property damage, lost rent during the 53-day average lease-up time, and turnover prep. That number is the entire business case for tenant screening. A few days of disciplined work upfront prevents a six-figure problem six months in.

I run Kendall Creek Properties in Austin, and I have watched the difference between a screened-correctly tenancy and a panic-fill placement play out a hundred times. The screened tenancy is boring. The panic-fill is the one that turns into a 4am phone call about a hole punched through a closet door (and then a JP court date six months later, and then an itemized list of deductions that does not survive cross-examination because the move-in walkthrough never happened).

The Texas Security Deposit 30-Day Rule: How Austin Landlords Stay Out of JP Court

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Texas landlords have 30 days from the date a tenant surrenders the property AND provides a written forwarding address to either refund the security deposit or mail an itemized list of deductions, and a bad faith violation costs $100 plus three times the wrongfully withheld amount plus the tenant’s attorney fees. That is Section 92.103, Section 92.104, and Section 92.109 of the Texas Property Code, and the JP court at the Travis County courthouse hears these cases on a regular weekly docket.

Texas Security Deposit Laws: The 30-Day Rule and the Triple-Damages Trap

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Texas landlords have exactly 30 days after a tenant surrenders the property to refund the security deposit or send an itemized list of deductions, and missing that deadline in bad faith costs $100 plus three times the wrongfully withheld amount plus the tenant’s attorney fees. That is Section 92.103 for the deadline and Section 92.109 for the penalty, and yes, those section numbers are worth knowing by heart if you self-manage.

Sounds strict right. Because it is. I have watched landlords lose JP court rulings over a $900 deposit and walk out owing four grand once the math finished. The most common version is not even greed. It is the owner who got busy, missed the 30-day window, and tried to send the itemized list on day 38. By then the legal presumption already flipped to bad faith, and the conversation in court is no longer about the deductions. It is about how much the landlord owes the tenant.

Texas Lease Agreement Requirements: What Has to Be in the Document

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A Texas residential lease must identify the owner or authorized manager in writing per Texas Property Code Section 92.201, and for any rental built before 1978 federal law also requires a lead-based paint disclosure plus the EPA pamphlet plus a 10-day opportunity for the tenant to inspect for lead. Miss either of those, and the lease is partially unenforceable in ways that bite at exactly the wrong moment (deposit dispute, eviction hearing, repair claim).

Texas Landlord Tenant Laws Every Property Owner Should Know

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Texas landlord tenant laws live almost entirely in Chapter 92 of the Texas Property Code, and the single most expensive mistake an owner can make is missing the 30-day security deposit deadline. Miss it, act in bad faith, and you owe the tenant $100 plus three times the wrongfully withheld portion plus their attorney fees. That is Section 92.109, and yes, it is worth knowing by heart.

Sounds harsh right. Because it is. I have watched landlords lose JP court rulings over a $900 deposit and walk out owing four grand once the math finished. So before we get into leases and repairs and evictions, lets put the rule book on the table so you know what you are actually working with.