I am looking to invest in real estate.  I would like to buy property
(homes/mobile homes,manufactured homes) and put out for rent.  Need
some tips, tricks, tax tips.  Is this is a good investment idea?  I
will buy and rent in Houston, TX.  Do mobile homes/manufactured homes
have property taxes in Houston? I heard someone saying you don't have
to pay property tax on manufcatered or mobile homes.  Need some
verification on this.  Also what about property management companies,
are they worth it? Any good leads on property maangemtn companies?
Also please provide list of mortgage lenders who will provide funding
for mobile or manufactured homes?  I particulary wanted to buy out a 3
bedroom home and rent it  out to 3 people (share as roommates).

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Clarification of Question by sleep3-ga on 20 Apr 2006 13:06 PDT

I would also like some research on the success of renting homes in
houston, the percentage of renters.  Also which houses would provide
the best return on investment for rental property.  SHould I look to
buy low income housing, median or bigger houses?

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Clarification of Question by sleep3-ga on 20 Apr 2006 13:26 PDT

Also, I would like to know how hard it is to evict a person when they
don't pay on time? Does this cost money?  How much? What involved with
this process?

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Clarification of Question by sleep3-ga on 23 Apr 2006 17:19 PDT

need more details , please.  Please answer all aspects if you reply.  
Thanks

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 23 Apr 2006 17:28 PDT

There are at least eight questions here. At your current price, the
Researcher who undertakes this will receive $7.50 for answering. For
better results, I suggest that you either post each question
separately, or greatly increase your price. When so many questions are
bundled together, quite a bit of research time is likely to be
involved, and I doubt that anyone would undertake so large a project
in order to earn $7.50.

Typically, the rent you receive will not quite be enough to pay your
mortgage every month.  But over time, rent will go up and your
mortgage payment will remain constant (assuming you get a fixed rate
loan) so you will come out ahead in the long run on a monthly basis.

The federal tax incentive for mortgages only applies if you live in
the house you have the mortgage on.  So if you own your current home
and have alot of equity, you should refinance to get the money out of
the house you live in and buy the new house with a smaller loan (or no
loan at all).  That way you will receive the maximum deduction on your
federal income taxes.
Most people claim that owning a home is amazing when it comes to
taxes, but in most states the property tax is just as high or even
higher than the money you save from the deduction.  That's just
something to keep in mind if you discover that TX does in fact charge
you property tax.

The going rate for property management companies is 12%.  They also
tend to charge 50% for the first month rent for a new tenant (renters
are much more mobile than owners so you could have a very high
turnover rate).  And if they collect fees due to late payments they
tend to keep all of that too.  You will keep alot more of your money
if you can manage the property yourself... but this means you have to
be willing to kick tenants our of your house which isn't an easy thing
to do sometimes.

Just some thoughts from seeing friends/family running rental
properties.  Best of luck!

I have a freind who earned more than a million dollars from low end
private and commercial realestate. His son has done even better
renting and renting to own a better quality of houses. Both are very
disaplined persons. It is essential to evict persons who are more than
two months behind in their rent or payments, as only one in twenty
turn out to be profitable later.
The three (or more) unrelated persons to a house market is florishing
here in Jacksonville, Florida. I suspect that it is typically in
violation of the zoning ordinances, which typically are not enforced,
unless the neighbors complain. I susspect you need to be a really
nasty money grabber to make this profitable, either long term or short
term. One landlord chewed out the people he wanted to move out daily
in a very unreasonable manner.   Neil

Buy some books and start educating yourself.  Take some courses at a
community college in real estate investing.

hi i have a rent house in a suburb on north dallas.  

maybe typical landlords can't cover their mortgage with rent roles,
but that's probably because they didn't try.

i bought a hud foreclosed home and rent it out for a small monthly
cashflow $150-$200.  i invested about $6k fixing it up, but it's got
built in $27k equity.

i don't find tenates myself, too much hassle - i use a real estate
agent to find them ($300 to find and screen tenate, i never even see
them).

why don't i just sell it?  well, $27k sounds like a great profit, but
it costs about 15% ($16k of my $110k house) just to sell it.  So I
will wait for appreciation.

My suggestion, start with Texas HUD foreclosed homes, they are easy to
find and you can get one at a 20% discount pretty easily.

After a while, you will figure out there are much better deals out
there.  Oh, and don't waste your time trying to find tenates yourself,
there are too many tire-kickers out there.

if you use a real estate agent and screen the tenates, you will find
you don't have to kick the tenates out very often (they are a better
class of people), and the agent will probably have a good list of
qualified independent contractors to help fix those 12:00am toilet
problems (which i've never had by the way).

good luck, and it's totally dueable if you have some decent cash set aside for it.