Summer Leasing Season
The busiest time of year is upon us. We are working vigilantly to get lease renewals done, and if a property is vacant we want to get it leased as quickly as possible. With the leasing market slowing down now is a good time to talk to your property manager and discuss the best options to get things done well in advance of a renewal or vacancy. Renewals in particular are good to secure as early as possible since the market continually shifts with each passing day.
We’ve mentioned in the past that incentives are back in the leasing market, so considering some kind of offer proactively to attract a tenant to a vacant property or keeping them at lease renewal should be discussed with your property manager. Incentives can be offered to both new and renewing tenants. A reduced or free period of rent on a new lease is very common right now. With lease renewals some tenants may ask for something like cleaning the AC ducts or providing a mid-lease carpet cleaning for example, which is a small expense relative to a turnover. The act of simply not, or minimally, raising the rent when offering renewal terms is also a good way to keep a tenant who doesn’t want the expense and hassle of moving. While you don’t have to offer anything we want everyone to be aware about the increasingly competitive nature of the lease market.
Solar Eclipse
The solar eclipse was a sight to see. Our staff had the day off and many spent the day with their families. Most of the path had cloudy skies with various parts of Austin ranging from completely overcast to almost clear, so many areas were able to see it through a layer of thin clouds that still allowed a great view. We hope you and your families were able to enjoy this spectacular phenomenon.
Now that the event is over, and we don’t have another one in the near future, we want to encourage everyone to recycle those glasses. There is an organization, Astronomers Without Borders, that is collecting them to reuse them in other parts of the world, which is a great way to keep them out of landfills. The City of Austin and some surrounding communities have set up locations to collect glasses.
Tax Protests Are Around The Corner
If you’re not familiar with the property tax process in Texas, or want a refresher or more details, we have a recent post that discusses everything related to property taxes and protests that was posted a few months ago. Please take a look at our post titled “Everything You Need to Know About Protesting Your Property Taxes in Austin, Texas.”
The preliminary values for some counties have been released, and for the first time in a long time we’re seeing low or no increase in values. Here are some details about the average preliminary value changes in Central Texas
Travis County: -2.2% decrease for 2024 vs 4.2% increase in 2023
Williamson County: 1.8% increase for 2024 vs -10.8% decrease in 2023
Hays County: -3.4% decrease for 2024 vs 14.4% increase in 2023
Even with some averages coming down it is always worth protesting and trying to reduce values on your individual properties. The blanket appraisal method most districts use skews the numbers, and the tax values in Texas have little impact on a home's sale value.
It’s almost time for the protest season to begin and the deadline to file is looming only weeks away. We’ve had great success partnering with Home Tax Shield, and they’ve achieved savings for many of our clients. If you already participate in the protest process through us and Home Tax Shield you’ll get notifications directly from them as the process hits certain milestones. If you’d like to get set up to protest this year you can use this link to get started. If you participate through us the annual fee is waived as long as you’re a client, and you’ll only pay the contingency fee if they are able to save you money on your taxes!
AT&T Breach and Scams
It was recently announced that AT&T was breached, possibly in 2021, and was not confirmed until the end of March 2024. There are a lot of articles about it right now, so definitely do a quick search if you’re interested in more details. The data is from over 70 million current and former customers. This includes names, emails, phone numbers, date of birth, social security numbers, and other AT&T account related data. In the context of being a client of Stone Oak we want to mention this because a lot of this data can be used in social engineering and phishing attacks, which could involve your data being used by someone who poses as your property manager or other contact as part of a scam.
That being said, we want to remind you that we will never call you to ask to confirm or provide your bank info, social security number, or other personal information on the phone or by email. We will also never ask you to pay for anything with gift cards, cryptocurrency, etc. All of our emails will come from our domain, www.stoneoakmgmt.com, or through our software as a long string of letters/numbers from the domain @stoneoak.mailer.appfolio.us. Our property management software includes a texting service that will not match our office number, but if you try to call that number it will go directly to our main office phone line.
Here is some helpful information about Caller ID Spoofing, and other common scams. Here is a recent posting from Chase Bank about other common scams that are good to be aware of.
Please stay vigilant, maintain a healthy amount of skepticism, and contact us directly with the number on our website or our direct emails if anything looks questionable.
Reminders:
Holiday Hours
We have updated our company holiday calendar in an effort to give everyone here at Stone Oak more time off with their families and friends. You can find our updated holiday closing schedule at this link.
Maintenance Approval Process Changes
In addition to the info below about funding repairs we want to notify all owners that we are modifying our escalation process when we can’t reach our clients in order to make sure we are complying with property code requirements. In bonafide emergencies we are acting within our authority to mitigate damages, however after it has been contained or in non-emergency situations we reach out to our clients for work authorization that is required above the limit set in the management agreement. In those cases we now have a strict process going into effect that will have a time-based escalation if we cannot reach you. The time frame will be that if we can’t reach you by the 3rd day from when we first reached out we will then reach out to your emergency contact who can aid us in getting authorization or contacting you. If you’d like to update your emergency contact we have on file please contact your property manager. Keep in mind that this contact should be someone outside of your immediate household who you trust to make decisions on your behalf if you cannot be reached by them or us.
Funding Make-Readies & Maintenance for Your Property
Please note that it is Stone Oak's policy that the owner has reserve funding on hand with Stone Oak to help us commence work faster when it comes to make-readies and maintenance on your property. Stone Oak cannot perform maintenance without first receiving authorization and funding, which can slow down the turn-around times of our vendors and their availability in this market. This can also potentially create a negative experience that tenants will remember when it comes time to renew, and we always want to avoid turning over the tenants. Any time we request authorization for work on your property, the best practice is to immediately fund your account when you provide written authorization to move forward. This is as simple as going into your owner portal and using ACH for a free transfer, or if you prefer a credit card the processor charges a fee as part of the transaction.
Keep in mind that tenant charges on your account are not considered an offset to this amount as we keep a strict accounting system for both our and our client's benefits. Any tenant chargeable items will be posted to their account, and once they are paid it is immediately credited to your account. If you have any questions about this reserve amount held with Stone Oak please contact your property manager.
HOA Compliance Notices
Did you know your HOA can send important notices and compliance letters directly to Stone Oak to enforce? Yes! We can take care of that for you! Please be sure to provide your HOA with Stone Oaks direct contact information so we can ensure timely delivery of notices.
Please contact your PM for more information.
