Are the property investors more local or are they coming from out of state?

 

So, we’ve always had a mix. I would say of folks that are local investors, folks that are out of state and even a handful of international investors ever since the kind of genesis of the company who had a good mix. But, I would say that pre-pandemic, it was still predominantly a local investor base we had several folks that would come to us and inquire about property management services because they were in the home but they were about to move due to work or maybe just to upgrade their existing home situation and they didn’t want to sell it or maybe they were debating about selling versus renting it out so that they could have that as an investment and we still get a good amount of those inquiries. That’s a lot of the inquiries that we got in the past also from a local basis, you have folks that are familiar with the area already and so they’re kind of interested,”oh I know the conroe area” or “I know The Woodlands area” and, I really want to get an investment property in those areas. We’ve definitely got a lot of those inquiries. And then lastly, you also have a lot of local investment clubs. So local real estate investment clubs, Lifestyles Unlimited is one, that’s a really large one started in Houston and has expanded to other areas of Texas. So, you had a lot of those kind of local clubs that helped to facilitate local property investment and thus a lot of our client base being local. What I would now say though, is the local interest has really slowed in the last 12 months as prices have increased both locally and then also because it’s become much more of a seller’s market really if you’ve been in the area for a little while you’re going to have a lot harder time swallowing the 20 plus percent increase in pricing from a year ago. So folks that were interested in investing in the area that have been following the market are going to say, “well no way i’m going to pay that for this home now it was last year I could have paid this for it.” So you know, there’s just kind of a recency effect there from local investors plus just an in general comment. The eviction moratoriums that have been in existence over the last 12 months have made smaller investors, the folks that you know might only own one home or two homes, they’ve made those folks a lot more wary because they don’t have the financial wherewithal that a larger investor might have.