Killeen Trip

I have been house-hunting outside of the Austin metro area the last couple of weeks, trying to find some multi-family housing. I've been especially keen on looking at areas north (way north) of Austin, and found some interesting finds in a town called Killeen, TX.

For those that aren't too familiar with Killeen, it's a nice-sized town that is home to the Army's Fort Hood. Fort Hood is a HUGE installation and there are thousands of soldiers stationed there, so it's easy to say that Killeen would be a big rental market.

I had found five properties while researching the town - one SFR, and four 4-plexes. The pictures on the web for the properties showed them to be in poor-to-fair condition, so I wasn't expecting a diamond in the rough by any means. When we got to the first property, I had quickly begun to understand why they were being sold so cheaply.


4-plex #1
There are burglar bars on the doors and windows for a reason. The area looked scary during the day time, so I can only imagine what it looks like at night. Next!

The next property is the lone SFR. It looked decent from the outside, but I couldn'y peek in the windows to see the inside. It had a small backyard and was located about a mile or so north of the 4-plex above. The neighborhood looked SLIGHTLY better, but still rundown.


SFR
Matter of fact, I hope I don't offend anyone reading this, but the whole town looked depressing. From the area I drove around, it looked to be about 80% duplexes, 4-plexes, 8-plexes, and apartment buildings, which I think is logical given Fort Hood is right next door. What I couldn't believe is the number of condemned/vacant properties there were.

We went and saw 4-plex #2 after the SFR. It was located about 1-2 miles north of the SFR, and I couldn't believe the area when I got there. The 4-plex itself looked in good shape, and anywhere else it would have been a superb purchase. But the street it was on was a complete disaster. There were probably 5-6 4-or-8-plexes there and HALF of them were vacant, boarded up and/or had broken windows, etc. I didn't even get out of the van to take a look as there was no way I was going to buy that 4-plex.

The following was the "best" 4-plex I found. It was located further east than the previous three properties:



4-plex #3

The last property was the final 4-plex. It looked in terrible shape. The window in the front left unit is broken, and I peeked in to see trash everywhere. The second picture shows the rear of the building, where you can see the indows paritally boarded up. The other half of the windows are broken as well:



4-plex #4
Right next door to this 4-plex was another 4-plex that looked in equally bad shape (see what I mean about the town having a lot of vacant/trashed properties?). Matter of fact, neither property had any notification of an address, so I'm not even sure which one is the actual 4-plex #4. LOL!


Another 4-plex
Now, seasoned rehabbers (and even novices) would love to have these properties. The problem for me is (1) they are located about 50 miles north, so I'd be hard-pressed trying to both rehab and manage the places, and (2) the city seems overly saturated with rental housing. Rents for those particular properties are in the $200-$400/month range, depending, so the properties would have to be bought dirt cheap in order to make any cash flow. Given the location of most of them, too, I figure a lot of cash flow one DID make would be put right into maintaining the property.