Owner Resources 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.

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.

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.