Episode #110 – The Benefits of Home Purchasing. The Real Estate Of Texas
Cali [00:00:00] So every year you’re saving an additional $2,000 on your taxes because of the way that the entities over there offer their homestead exemption.
Jessica [00:00:08] Wow. That’s fascinating.
Cali [00:00:10] So it’s a big it’s a big benefit. So whenever you’re looking to purchase the property and if that’s important to you, then you might want to look into what different enities offer for the homestead exemption.
INTRO [00:00:19] Welcome to The Real estate of Texas with the gals of the Hill Country brought to you by Solid Realty Group in Boerne, Texas at SolidRealtyGroup.com. And now your hosts, Jessica Johnson and Cali Redd.
Cali [00:00:35] Hello everyone and thanks so much for tuning in to The Real Estate of Texas presented by Solid Realty Group. I am Cali Redd and I am here with my lovely business partner, Jessica Johnson, once again.
Jessica [00:00:46] Hi, Cali. Hi, everybody.
Cali [00:00:48] Today we are going to be talking about the benefits of home purchasing, as well as following up on our previous conversation regarding homestead exemptions and talking about property tax rates.
Jessica [00:01:01] Oh, so exciting. And then a little later in our show we have our Boerne Business Spotlight and because we love to promote our incredible business owners and organizations that you can find here in Boerne, Texas. Today’s spotlight is on Vintage Reconstruction with our wonderful owner, Darcee Grivel. I just love her and I’m so looking forward to that.
Cali [00:01:22] I’m looking forward to that, too. She’s just such a spunky little lady.
Jessica [00:01:25] She is, indeed. So we are here today talking about the benefits of home purchasing. And a couple weeks ago, Cali and I had talked to you about why purchasing a home is, is beneficial. And one of the things that we had brought to people’s attention is the investment that they’re actually making in a home. That, when you rent, you’re renting, and when you purchase a home, you’re actually owning something. It belongs to you. You can have it for the length of the time that you pay for it. And whether you keep it for a quick return, you know, under two years where you pay some capital gains on it because that’s the on that was about the only time you could, you could have it. You move for a job or you transferred but also long term investments kind of your savings account for your life, right? I mean, that’s, that’s the houses.
Cali [00:02:16] Right. Well, I mean, it can kind of be a little bit of a hedge against inflation, right? Because the rent rates are going up and you have no control over, over what someone’s going to charge you for rent or what the rent market is going to be in, in an area that’s, you know, predicated on a lot of different factors. But once you’re in a house, then your your mortgage payment is your mortgage payment. I mean, it’s going to fluctuate for taxes, but it’s not necessarily fluctuating for the, the market value going up unless you cash out, buy something new.
Jessica [00:02:42] Unless you cash out and buy something new. But make sure you, you double check to make sure that you don’t hit things like capital gains.
Cali [00:02:50] Yeah. Make sure it’s been two years.
Jessica [00:02:52] Make sure it’s been two years. And if it’s under two years, that’s absolutely fine. I mean, that that’s absolutely a personal choice. But just be aware that there’s going to be taxes that are associated with that sale of the House. And I think that there’s a lot of times that that homeowner is not, does not understand that there could be a big dollar value that is owed to the IRS after the sale of that, unless they’ve been informed. And so one of the things that we talked about was educating people. And so we just want to make sure that those are things that people understand that they need to be prepared for. If it’s aCali [00:03:28] Basic guideline for capital gains, is you must live in the property for two of the last five years, it does not have to be two consecutive years. It just needs to be two of the last five years. Speak with your CPA. But the other basic guideline is that for an individual, you can not pay capital gains on $250,000. And for a married couple, it’s $500,000. Yes. So that’s really a huge, a huge benefit. But another benefit of home purchasing is that you can write off your interest on your personal taxes. So we’re going to be talking in a couple of weeks with a CPA that could give us a little bit more information on that. But your mortgage interest is, is a write off for you, whereas if you just rent then you don’t, you don’t have that sort of a write off on your taxes.
Jessica [00:04:17] Yes. Do you, can you write off your rent on your taxes?
Cali [00:04:21] Well, that will be a question for the CPA that’s coming out in a couple of weeks. But I do not believe you can write off your rent on your taxes now. I mean, you can’t write off your whole mortgage on your taxes, but you can write off the interest.
Jessica [00:04:31] Yes. Yes. And as your interest rates goes up, there’s going to be a little bit more money that’s gonna, you’re going to be able to claim towards your taxes. So there is an offset of the frustration that your interest rate has increased and you’re paying more taxes, but you are allowed to write up, write off a higher amount if that’s your interest rate.
Cali [00:04:51] If that’s your interest rate, that’s correct. And then another benefit is the homestead exemption that is offered. Most Another benefit to purchasing a home is your homestead exemption on your taxes. And any entity, again, could offer you a homestead exemption, but for the most part, it’s, particularly in Boerne, it is only the Boerne ISD that does offer that and that is mandated by the state. It is a $40,000 deduction in the value of your property. So if you’re value, if your home is valued at $600,000, then you would only be taxed on the value of $560,000 for your Boerne ISD taxes. So that is, that is a benefit of home ownership and certain areas. We talked about this before, but I wanted to go in a little bit more on it.
Jessica [00:05:33] Just to let people know if you’re just joining our show, we are talking today about the benefits of home purchasing and some of the tax benefits that are there. So go ahead. Cali, I’m so sorry.
Cali [00:05:42] Oh no, that’s okay. And we are Solid Realty Group presenting The Real Estate of Texas in Boerne, if you were just joining us. But I did want to talk a little bit more about the benefits of the homestead exemption and what that looks like in different areas. So as I, as I stated in Boerne, it’s the Boerne ISD that gives us that exemption. And so basically your, the value of your exemption here in Boerne is $481.84 because it reduces the value of your property by $40,000. And if you run the numbers, that is what your benefit is. But I was previously also talking about different entities offering different exemptions, such as the Comal ISD. So the Comal ISD offers the $40,000 that’s mandated by the state, but they also offer you 20% off of the value of your home. So if you owned a $600,000 house, the value of that exemption is $2,444 rather than $481.
Jessica [00:06:37] Wow.
Cali [00:06:37] So every year you’re saving an additional $2,000 on your taxes because of the way that the entities over there offer their homestead exemption.
Jessica [00:06:45] Wow. That’s fascinating.
Cali [00:06:46] So it’s a big, it’s a big benefit. So whenever you’re looking to purchase the property and if that’s important to you, then you might want to look into what different entities offer for the homestead exemption.
Jessica [00:06:55] Yes. So because we’re talking about Boerne real estate right now, what do we have kind of with the, you had mentioned the Boerne Independent School District taxes. What do we have coming with that right now?
Cali [00:07:06] Well, we just passed a bond, and I don’t, I don’t have those numbers here with me because we didn’t really talk about that in advance. But we did just pass a bond back in the spring. There was a bond election for the Boerne ISD, and that was passed by the voters. But we do have, actually right now, they’re, they’re holding public hearings. Well, actually, last month they were holding public hearings for the property taxes. That, because every year the, you know, the all the entities vote on their property taxes.
Jessica [00:07:33] Indeed.
Cali [00:07:34] So the rates are coming up. They’re holding public hearings. They are not increasing the taxes to an amount that is going to require a public vote, is my understanding. But they will be getting a lot of, they will be raising more property taxes because the property values have gone up in Boerne.
Jessica [00:07:50] Well, the property values have gone up everywhere. I mean, look at.
Cali [00:07:52] The property values have gone up everywhere. Yes.
Jessica [00:07:55] So what is the amount that they can increase without a public vote? That’s fascinating. I didn’t know that.
Cali [00:08:00] It’s called the No-New-Revenue tax rate would be the rate at which whatever entity is going to bring in the exact amount that they did last year. So that tax rate is going to be lower than what The rate itself would be lower than what it was last year if they were bringing in the same revenue because the value of the properties have gone up and there’s more taxable properties on the rolls than there were previously. So for instance, for the City of Boerne, that rate would have been $0.39 per hundred dollars. It’s, well, $0.39 and some change, right? $0.39 per hundred dollars. But they, the proposed rate is going to be $0.45, point 451. So that’s the proposed tax rate that the city is proposing. So that’s going to increase their revenue by about $2 million, just a little bit under $2 million for the city.
Jessica [00:08:48] Mm hmm.
Cali [00:08:48] Right now, they would have to go to a public vote if they were going to go up .4518. But they did not go up .4518. So we do not require a public vote. They went up .4510.
Jessica [00:09:00] Okay.
Cali [00:09:01] So you see, it’s just a little bit lower than the one that would require the public vote. But it is still going to bring in more tax revenue to the city due to the increase of property value and the increase of properties that are being taxed.
Jessica [00:09:15] Right. Right. Wow. That’s I mean, that’s a good thing. Now, can they do that every single year?
Cali [00:09:21] Every year they set their budget and then they have their proposed tax rate.
Jessica [00:09:24] And then if they choose to go over that amount, then it has to go to a public hearing.
Cali [00:09:28] Right. Right. And every, every I mean, most of the entities are the same, right? So, so the city does theirs and the county does theirs. And they’ll hold a public hearing usually just before the they were held last month. One was held September the sixth or something and one was held, I want to say September the 13th, but they’ll hold a public hearing on it. But as long as it doesn’t have to go to a public vote, then it’s really just a, just a hearing to kind of find out information about it, right? You can tell them your two cents on it, but if it’s not going to a public vote, it’s not going to a public vote. But both, both entities will be getting substantially more taxes than they did last year because of the increase in the property values, which didn’t just happen in Boerne, it happened all over the country, you know, but they went up here significantly. So for instance, the, the Kendall County I’ll just read this right from their proposed budget announcement, it says: “this budget will raise the total property taxes in last year’s budget by $2,676,705, which is an 11.4% increase. So they’re going to have, you know, $2,676,000 more than they would have had before just because of the increase.
Jessica [00:10:38] What are their plans to, to use that money?
Cali [00:10:40] Well, I don’t know. We should probably get the new county judge in here to tell us all about that. That’d be great!
Jessica [00:10:45] We should! We should get the county judge in here. What it Judge Lux has been part of the Boerne-Kendall County for many, many years. He’s quite a, quite a fun, fun judge. Quite a, quite a great man. And so he’s, he’s on his way out. When does, uh, I always butcher his name.
Cali [00:11:02] His name is Shane Something that I cannot pronounce.
Jessica [00:11:05] Shane
Cali [00:11:05] But it’s a lovely name. And it begins with an S and I don’t think he cares if you remember. That’s what he said when he asked you to vote for him. He did not care if you remember his name. He just wanted you to vote for him. His name was Shane. But we should get him here to talk about the budget. We should also get someone from the city, though, in here to talk about the budget because they are also proposing a bond. So they, you know, the tax rate is going up a tiny bit. So they will be getting additional revenue, which they would have been giving additional revenue just from the property value increase anyways. But the tax rate is going up a tiny bit, so they’re getting more additional revenue from that. But they also are proposing a bond which will be on the ballot, I believe, in November. So we need to have somebody from the city come in and tell us all about that bond and what they want to do with it.
Jessica [00:11:48] Yes. What is that bond going to be, do you know?
Cali [00:11:50] I do not have that number in my mind. So sorry.
Jessica [00:11:53] Okay. Okay. No, not at all. Not at all. Yes. So we need to get the county judge in here. We need to get the
Cali [00:11:58] Yeah, we need to do that before November. We need to have a show about the, about the bond. I think that would be good to know. You know, what the money’s earmarked for and all of that.
Jessica [00:12:05] Yeah. No, absolutely. All right, City: we’re going, we’re going to ask you to come and talk to the people out here in Boerne.
Cali [00:12:11] If you would like to raise your hand and volunteer, please do.
Jessica [00:12:13] Yes. Yes. Otherwise, we’ll call you out. No, we’ll We’ll call you by name if we can pronounce it. So [laughs].
Cali [00:12:21] We’ll call them by name.
Jessica [00:12:21] No, Shane with an S.
Cali [00:12:24] Yeah.
Jessica [00:12:25] Judge S.
Cali [00:12:25] Something with an “S”. Yeah, that’s lovely.
Jessica [00:12:27] That’s what he’s going to go by, is going to be Judge Shane. That, that’s how people are going to know him. Well, we’re wrapping up our show here on The Real Estate of Texas. We are Solid Realty Group here in Boerne, Texas, and we are happy to help you buy or sell a home. We’re also happy to answer some any questions that you have about your real estate or refer you to some of the fabulous referrals that we have here in Boerne and within our community. So you can reach out to us. Our number again is 210-827-3733 and our website is SolidRealtyGroup.com and we’re super excited that later in our show we are going to bring Darcee Grivel with Vintage Reconstruction up here and we’re going to talk about a Boerne Business Spotlight. So stay tuned. And we’ll have her here in just a
minute.
Cali [00:13:15] Yes. And if you are interested in selling your property, then please do give us a call. Or if there’s a property you do not yet own that you would like to own We are happy to help you with that as well. So give us a call over here at Solid Realty Group. Thank you so much for joining us.
Jessica [00:13:28] Right, bye.
COMMERCIAL [00:13:32] The real estate of Texas is always changing. Get a “solid” start to buying or selling a house with Solid Realty Group. Hey, y’all. I’m Jessica Johnson, co-owner of Solid Realty Group, Boerne’s 5-Star REALTORS, where we have saved our clients over $3 million. Given today’s rising home values and interest rates, every penny counts. Call Solid Realty Group to buy or sell and we can help you save more and stress less. Call us at (210) 827-3733. [email protected].
Cali [00:14:11] Hello everyone and thanks so much for tuning in to The Real Estate of Texas presented by Solid Realty Group. I’m Cali Redd here with my business partner, Jessica Johnson.
Jessica [00:14:19] Hi, Cali. How are y’all today?
Cali [00:14:21] Today we were talking about the benefits of purchasing a home.
Jessica [00:14:24] You’re listening to The Real Estate of Texas presented by Solid Realty Group of Boerne. If you think you’re ready to buy a new house, please give us a call at 210-827-3733. Today, we’ve been talking about the benefits of home purchasing, and we’d like to introduce Darcee Grivel from Vintage Reconstruction to talk about some of the benefits of getting somebody to come into your house and to give you an overall idea of how you should make repairs if there’s damage that’s done to your house. So first off, we’d like to introduce Darcee. How are you today?
Darcee [00:14:58] I’m doing well. Thank you, ladies, for having me. I appreciate the time. So my name is Darcee with Vintage Reconstruction. We are general contractors, but we specialize strictly in insurance claim reconstruction. So we’ve been in business since 1987.
Jessica [00:15:13] So a few years.
Darcee [00:15:14] Yeah. Celebrating 35 years. We are a third generation
Cali [00:15:17] But you’re only 18!
Darcee [00:15:19] Exactly. Thank you. We are third generation general contractors. And so what we do is you really don’t want to have to call us, but people have catastrophes when there’s a flood, a fire, hail damage, wind damage, need your roofs redone. We will come in and take care of it if it’s a commercial property or a residential property. So we do both. And so the difference between us and regular GC, they may only take care of the windows or they may only come in and take care of the plumbing. We are a one-stop-shop so we will take care of everything from the foundation to the roof, exterior and interior, and most, like for instance, most roofers will only take care of the roof, but if there’s a leak on the inside, they’re not going to go inside the home. They’re not going to take care of it. So that’s where we come in to help the insured negotiate and help with the scope of repairs with the insurance agent to make sure they get back whole before the catastrophe happened.
Jessica [00:16:27] So when you guys go in there and do that, one of the things that we had talked about a couple shows previously is that there is an amount that’s allocated from the insurance company that’s over and on top of what like just the roof repair may be. Is that is that correct? Is that are the right understanding?
Darcee [00:16:44] That is correct, because there could be further damage. You just don’t know until you get into it. And then there is the the overhead expenses for it. But that’s what will go in and take care of. And sometimes the insurance claim doesn’t allow enough money to take care of everything. So that’s where we come in to help negotiate or we’ll present a supplement to make sure that everything’s taken care of.
Cali [00:17:07] So by the supplement, you mean you’re sort of delineating all of the damages that were done, not just the roof, if there was a leak inside you?Darcee [00:17:14] Absolutely. And a regular general contractor doesn’t always have that trained eye to see above and beyond where the insurance claim might be. They just see the outside of it. But there’s so much, so many more layers that can happen. And that’s where we go in and we help.
Jessica [00:17:30] So what typically happens to be the biggest case problem is the, the roof that leaks or the foundation, what do you think’s usually the ones that people aren’t prepared to realize there’s additional damage to their house?
Darcee [00:17:41] Usually, I would say usually a fire or flood.
Jessica [00:17:45] Okay. Okay.
Darcee [00:17:46] People are just not prepared for it. And something that we always try to tell people is that you need to have all your documents in order in one place and one folder. So when something like that does happen, you’ve got your insurance information, your agent who you need to call and you would call your agent first. But we are on the approved list, the vendor list for several different carriers in different platforms. And so they guarantee our work just as we also have a guarantee for our work.
Cali [00:18:13] So when you say flood, you’re not necessarily just talking about rising water from outside, you’re talking about busted pipes or anything that would cause water damage.
Darcee [00:18:21] I tell you what, summertime when you go on vacation, the toilet overflows, the little from your refrigerator line that will bust and flood out.
Cali [00:18:31] Doesn’t everyone just turn off their water before they leave the house?
Darcee [00:18:33] Absolutely not. They’re clueless, but if they have good REALTORS that remind them, then they would.
Jessica [00:18:39] So talking about like a busted pipe for your fridge, what kind of damage does that do if the water runs for a couple of days when you’re on vacation?
Darcee [00:18:49] Oh, my gracious it the whole flooring, the cabinets, the wall behind the fridgerator, it goes it goes into the living room, washroom I mean, so that’s that’s a whole I mean, it could depending on how many days and then if it rises. So that would be something we would come in and take care of. Now we do not do the water mitigation so we wouldn’t extract the water, we would sub that out to a water person and then we would come in with the scope of repairs and take care of all the buildback, take care of the rest of it, the flooring, the sheetrock, all that.
Jessica [00:19:26] So on a typical claim, do people just come in and like, have the floor replaced and like just have a, you know, just a flooring guy that comes in, tears that up, puts an air conditioning on the floor and then resettles the, the wood that you replace. I mean is that, kind of, where you’re mitigating your damages, like, hey, get a general contractor that has the experience in this or if someone comes in overlays this, the insurance pays out the claim, coming back to you guys later causes additional damages. Like, where are you at with people? Like what’s your recommendation of, “Hey, get the second opinion?” How do you guys do that?
Darcee [00:20:02] Oh, you can absolutely get a second opinion, but usually the adjuster will come in after this has happened and he’ll have his estimate, scope of repairs and share it with the insured. If the insured is not happy with the bottom line or feels like there’s more damage, they want a second opinion. They’ll give us a call. There’s other GC’s out there, too, that can do this. We have our competitors out there, so they try to include everybody, but we usually go in and we fight for them and negotiate for them. And if they don’t want to use us, that’s okay. But we’ve been around for a really long time and so we’ve got a, a good, a good rap, a good history. And so we go in and try to take care of them.
Cali [00:20:42] So logistically, what is the process actually look like? So someone comes home from vacation and there’s water in their house. They call their insurance company first? They call you first? What would be their next step that they should do?
Darcee [00:20:52] They usually call their agent. The agent will get an adjuster. They will call us because they need to get that water
Cali [00:20:59] So the homeowner calls you or the agent or the insurance calls you?
Darcee [00:21:01] Either one. It depends. We may already know the homeowner. If it’s a friend, because we’re very involved in the community
Cali [00:21:06] You are very involved in the community.
Darcee [00:21:07] They may call us thank you. They may call us and say, hey, we need help right away. Could be two in the morning. We are 24/7 to help people out. If they’re not aware of us they’ll their agent. And we know a lot of the agents. Leon, because he’s been around since ’87. They’ll call us and say, “hey, we need somebody out there to extract the water and then we need you to go out there after the adjuster has done his job.” We are not ambulance chasers. We don’t want to go knocking on doors because it’s, it’s a very traumatic experience.
Cali [00:21:35] Gotcha. So they could call their insurance agent or they could call you.
Darcee [00:21:38] Absolutely.
Cali [00:21:39] When they come home.
Darcee [00:21:39] Absolutely.
Cali [00:21:41] Well, there you go.
Darcee [00:21:41] Yup!
Jessica [00:21:42] So how do people get a hold of you?
Darcee [00:21:45] So we, we office out off of John’s Road in, in Boerne and our phone number is 210-492-4171. And then of course we have our website which is vintagetx.com. So they can contact us either way. And I take the phones at night, we never give it to an answering service, so I’m always answering the phone after hours and on the weekends.
Cali [00:22:09] Really?
Darcee [00:22:10] Absolutely.
Cali [00:22:10] So I want to talk to you. I’ll just call the I’ll just Google “Vintage Reconstruction.”
Darcee [00:22:14] Absolutely.
Cali [00:22:15] At 2 am.
Darcee [00:22:15] Yeah. And then I sleep very light.
Cali [00:22:21] That’ll be a lot easier that a Facebook message.
Darcee [00:22:23] Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jessica [00:22:25] But you, you said you guys have been around for 35 years, but you guys are so incredibly immersed in our community. I mean, you sit on multiple boards, you sit with the Dominion Rotary,
right?
Darcee [00:22:35] Yes.
Jessica [00:22:36] I think you’re the president right now, aren’t you?
Darcee [00:22:38] Well, I am interim. I was a past president a couple of years ago. So I’m interim right now on the board. And, and yeah, we just we believe in giving back and something to that we believe in,
if you choose Vintage to help you with your claim, then we will give back to a charity of your choice. $100, whatever charity you, you believe in.
Jessica [00:22:58] Well, that’s fantastic. I love that so much! So, um you guys, what are you also do the philanthropy for the Hill Country Women in Business group. You do! We got to applaud the women
here in the community and what they do to make it better and lift it up. And you are one of those people that do that, Darcee, and we’re just super honored and blessed to have you here. So we just wanted
to acknowledge that about you.
Darcee [00:23:20] Well, thank you. I appreciate even the offer and opportunity and y’all are just as involved. So I think it takes a village, so I appreciate it. We make a good team.
Jessica [00:23:28] We do. We do. So we like to ask everybody before they leave, what is your favorite thing about Boerne?
Darcee [00:23:35] Oh, my goodness gracious, that’s hard! My favorite thing probably I would say just the people. Just the people, how kind and how connected they are. And they don’t, they want to work with each other local. Nobody wants to go outside. And so I think that’s a really big deal. We think local first before we go outside because we do a lot of work also in San Antonio. But my mind is always turning, “who can I go to first in Boerne?” and so, it’s it’s a great team.
Jessica [00:24:06] It is wonderful. Well, is there anything else you want to let us know before we go? Before we take off for today?
Darcee [00:24:12] Now, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity. And ya’ll are doing a great, great job at what you do. So thank you.
Cali [00:24:20] Aww, thank you and thanks for coming up on a Thursday morning out here on Main Street of Boerne.
Darcee [00:24:25] Absolutely. I got to play hooky from work just a little bit.
Jessica [00:24:28] Yeah, that’s good!
Cali [00:24:28] You got to put the phone down.
Darcee [00:24:29] That’s right.
Jessica [00:24:31] Oh, no! Who answered the call? [laughs].
Cali [00:24:34] It’s great to see you. Thank you so much for coming.
Darcee [00:24:36] Nice to see y’all.
Jessica [00:24:37] Yes, thank you, Darcee Grivel, for joining us today. And thank you for tuning in to The Real Estate of Texas presented by Solid Realty Group.Cali [00:24:45] Real estate does not have to be stressful, folks. We can help you decide whether it’s the right time to sell with a free market analysis on your existing home or if you’re looking to buy a property, we can talk with you about all the options available to maximize your investment. So give us a call.
Jessica [00:24:59] That’s right. Give us a call at 210-827-3733. Or go to our website at SolidRealtyGroup.com. Thanks, y’all and we’ll chat next week.
COMMERCIAL [00:25:12] The real estate of Texas is always changing. Get a “solid” start to buying or selling a house with Solid Realty Group. Hey, y’all. I’m Jessica Johnson, co-owner of Solid Realty Group, Boerne’s 5-Star REALTORS, where we have saved our clients over $3 million. Given today’s rising home values and interest rates, every penny counts. Call Solid Realty Group to buy or sell, and we can help you save more and stress less. Call us at (210) 827-3733. [email protected].
