Red Wagon Realty

Welcome to Red Wagon Realty, a full service property management company specializing in real estate investment management. Whether your home was originally your homestead or you bought it as an investment, it is an investment now. Many people are becoming investors unintentionally as their houses become harder to sell. We handle all sizes of portfolios from 1 to ~30 homes. Everyone has different comfort levels when dealing with their investments and we offer you a personal relationship in dealing with yours. Below is an outline of our basic services. I would love to chat with you about your property specifically, so please, contact us today with the free quote form.

Property:

Putting your home up for rent: We market your property extensively in order to bring tenant traffic to your property. After you have signed the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR-2201) Residential Leasing and Property Management Agreement your home will have a sign in the front yard, and a lock box on the door. Your home will be listed in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), Realtor.com, mysa.com, Automated Housing Referral Network (AHRN is the military relocation website), Craigslist.com, Rentals.com, Rentalhouses.com, Yahoo.com, and about 30 other affiliate Internet sites.

Maintenance: It is very important to take care of maintenance issues when they arise. Most importantly it keeps our tenants happy, which keeps them in your property. It also keeps your property from being over-run with deferred maintenance; hence lowering its equitable value. The most expensive cost to an owner is vacancy; the second most expensive is maintenance. Clearly it is not necessary to call a plumber every time the toilet won't flush. Many repairs can be handled for much less money when you use a maintenance person. We work with a long list of vendors in town that have proven to be trustworthy, reliable, dependable, and reasonable when called for a maintenance repair. Our list starts as basic as carpet cleaning or general maintenance and gets more specialized to include plumbing, AC repair, and foundation work. Most repairs are paid for by rent proceeds and itemized on your monthly accounting statement at the end of each month.

Inspections: All of our properties are inspected at least twice a year. Our maintenance crew handles our inspections and looks for items of deferred maintenance that need to be addressed. Most of these items are very inexpensive repairs. It would cost you too much to pay for any one of them on a service call so having all of them addressed at one time keeps your property cared for and your cost down. This is also when we ensure the tenants are changing their air filters, or violating any provisions of the lease. Violations may include unauthorized pets, smoking inside, or unauthorized occupants. It is important to manage the amount of stress or wear put on a property during a tenants stay.

Tenant:

Screening: Most investors' biggest fear is getting a bad tenant. A bad tenant in your property costs money so we take our tenant selection process very seriously. We are affiliated with the National Tenant Network, and screen our applicants for 6 different qualifications: Rental History, Credit History, Credit Score, Employment Verification, Debt to Income ratios, and the terrorist database search. As a general rule we do not accept tenants with evictions, sex-crimes, lack of verifiable employment, or if they don't make 3 times the amount of rent.

Leasing and Rent Collection: After our prospective tenant meets the standard we are looking for with your property, they will sign a (TAR-2001) lease agreement. Texas is a very landlord friendly state. This is a 14-page lease outlining all the provisions to protect you, your property, and me. One of the provisions is that rent must be paid on the 1st and late on the 3rd at midnight. Tenants deposit their rent directly into our account at any Bank of America in the country. This expedites the rent collection process and eliminates excuses for late rent and postal delays. In the rare event rent is not paid by the ~8th tenants receive a 3-day notice to pay their rent or face an eviction procedure.

Leaving/Deposits: At tenant lease signing the tenant is given a six-page inventory condition form to be filled out in detail when they move in. At the end of the tenants lease term the tenant must give us 30-days written notice so we can notify the owner of the potential upcoming vacancy. The tenant will then schedule a walk-through where we go to inspect the property, tenant surrenders keys, and we take possession of the property. At this inspection we compare the current status of the property with the inventory form that the tenant filled out. Any necessary repairs other than normal wear and tear will be charged to the security deposit before refund. All left over security deposit must be returned to the tenant with an accounting of all monies within 30 days of re-taking possession of the property.

Owners:

Management Fees: As a property manager and investor I understand how important it is for us to be on the same side of the financial table as our property owners. Our management fees are simple and straightforward with no hidden fees that surprise you after you have hired us. We charge a 50% leasing fee and a 10% monthly management fee. We do not charge anything until we have filled your vacancy. If another agent is due a commission for bringing us a qualified tenant, we pay that agents commission out of our 50% fee. We also pay for our standard advertisements already mentioned above at no cost to you.

No hidden Fees: Many companies will charge additional fees or have other financial burdens that are not disclosed up front. With Red Wagon Realty there is no "service fee" for ordering maintenance requests or repair issues. We do not ask you to give us any upfront money for a maintenance account. We do not charge you a renewal fee when your tenant decides to extend their lease. Again, we do not charge a monthly management fee until the vacancy has been filled and we are collecting rent.

Electronic Accounting: Much like the tenant rent collection process we are a progressive company and have gone paperless. On or about the 10th of each month you will receive an electronic statement from us itemizing all income and expenses regarding each property. If you own more than one property you will receive an additional statement that summarizes and balances your accounts across all of your properties. Immediately following your statement we will make a direct deposit into the account of your choosing. An e-mail conformation is automatically sent to you to indicate the payment is in process.

Any of the legal forms mentioned above can be found by typing the reference number into a Google search bar. I am sure you will have additional questions that we would love to answer; we hope to hear from you soon.