So you have aspirations of being the kingpin among Abilene landlords? We’ve compiled a list of Abilene’s biggest landlords ranked by unit count, total square footage under management, and appraised value to give that ambition context.
To make this list, we had a few qualifications. We started with
- the 36,013 residential properties in Abilene looking at single-family homes, condominiums and mobile homes.
- Homes with a homestead exemption were culled from this list as we assumed they are used as a primary residence, not a rental.
This yielded a list of 13,469 addresses that were classified as rentals.
- 801 of these were duplex / multifamily, 320 were mobile homes and the balance of 12,348 were single-family homes.
- School districts contiguous to AISD made the count, but the two biggest were Wylie ISD with 1,896 rent houses and Abilene ISD with 11,729.
- Local Abilene ownership holds 75.8% of total Abilene-area rentals. 91.4% is owned by Texas owners leaving 8.6% owned by out-of-state investors.
Zoning was used to get a sense of which zoning class best characterizes residential rentals.
- Homes zoned RS6 make up 47.0% of the residential properties in Abilene, but comprise 52.6% of all rentals.
- Properties zoned MD (medium density) make up 10.7% of the local residential market, but 16.8% of rentals hold this zoning.
- RS8-zoned properties make up 12.8% of all residential properties, but only 8.9% of rentals carry zoning with a minimum 8000 sqft lot size.
- 5.1% of residential property is zoned RS12 with a lot minimum of 12,000 sqft while only 2.1% of rentals possess this zoning.
It’s no surprise that RS6 and MD is the preferred zoning class for rentals; less land or land that permits greater density is a better buy for investors.
Abilene-area sales recorded by NTREIS for the last two years were used to get a per square foot value for sold homes in Abilene based on current market figures.
- Townwide, homes sold for $92.83 per square foot.
- Wylie ISD homes sold for $115.80 per square foot.
- Homes in Abilene ISD sold for $76.53 per square foot.
In contrast, Taylor CAD valuations were lower for both rentals (homes without a homestead exemption) and homesteaded properties. Taylor CAD appraisals for rentals were valued at:
- $54.96 per square foot town wide
- $46.88 per square foot for homes in Abilene ISD
- $94.82 per square foot for homes in Wylie ISD.
Taylor CAD appraisals for homesteaded properties were valued at:
- $73.21 per square foot town wide
- $61.79 per square foot for homes in the Abilene ISD
- $98.33 per square foot for homes in the Wylie ISD.
Comparing CAD valuations yields a $14.91 difference per square foot between rentals and non-rentals in AISD, but only a $3.51 difference between rentals and non-rentals in WISD. In both cases, it a reinforcement of conventional wisdom that homesteaded homes carry a higher appraised value.
Legal description was used to identify neighborhoods with most rentals.
- It was tough to come up with a meaningful way to characterize this; some subdivisions were 100% rentals because there were two houses sharing the legal description – not very interesting.
- Other subdivisions had multiple additions, but the temptation to combine these into one, large subdivision was resisted to maintain distinctions this may capture.
- Instead, this assessment offers a spreadsheet of the data that can be sorted by number of rentals, total properties, and percent rentals per subdivision. This allows the user to look up a the subdivision to assess the number of nearby rentals.
All right, enough with the preamble – let’s get to the landlord list. While all this information is public record, the decision was made to redact owner’s names from this list. Our list of landlords is reported by unit count, total square footage owned, total land area owned, and total value of portfolio. Total Taylor CAD value of portfolio is summarized in the column labeled portfolio value – Taylor CAD. Regarding this list:
- Owners with a single non-homesteaded home were deleted – a cursory scan of owners revealed people I know personally that haven’t bothered to homestead their home or have their homestead elsewhere – consequently, the smallest unit count for a landlord on this list is 2.
- 1,432 landlords have 2 or more properties in Abilene.
- For these 1,432 landlords, the average rental portfolio consists of 5 houses with total square footage of 7,990 built around 1959.
- The largest portfolio of single-family properties is 132 units with an average year built of 1955.
- It took a measure of handwork to get a reasonably reliably list because many owners held their properties under entities other than their name. If we’ve overlooked one or two of your rentals, it wasn’t without trying to make a single record for your ownership.
Lastly, an attempt was made to discover portfolios that were over or under valued by Taylor CAD . An econometric model was devised that considered;
- Sold real estate prices over the last two years
- Improved square footage
- Property age
- Lot square footage
- School district
This estimate is entabled in the column portfolio value – Barnett & Hill econometric estimation. The column labeled difference between CAD value and BH value shows the difference between the two valuations of each portfolio. A negative number suggests you might have a conversation about appraised values with Taylor CAD. A positive number suggests you might consider selling to book this value and move it to other investments.
Equipped with this understanding, Barnett & Hill used this estimation as an initial pass to identify portfolios that are overvalued by Taylor CAD to help the investors for whom we manage with tax contestation. In the case of an undervalued portfolio, Barnett & Hill can work as your real estate agent to list, market and reposition the equity you hold in your current real estate portfolio.
If you’re a landlord and you think you know your rank on this list, but would like verification, call John Hill at 325.721.4428 or email him for more information.
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