Austin and Building (fit in, real estate, rental)

[cvanripe10]

Hey I am 24 years old and looking for a place to move. I am into Carpentry, painting, and general home imrpovement.

Now my question is if Austin is a good place to move to for this?? I am worried that Austin might be over run with illegal immigrants and all of them being paid slave wages to work. I'm a white guy from Jersey. Some insight on this please..

I hear so many things about Austin, just not sure if I could fit in.

[austin-steve]

As a long-time Austin Property Manager and real estate agent, I can tell you that we have ample people in Austin who claim to be able to do the things you list, but very few who are reliable, trustworthy and reasonably priced.

If you can perform "service call" and "make-ready" work in a speedy, efficient and cost effective manner, you'll have more work than you can possibly handle. If you're more into remodels and bid type jobs, you'll have more competition. If you can knock out various items from a home inspection list, you'll have Realtors calling you often (though that can be tricky as you can get sucked into doing a lot of free bids that don't turn into jobs).

You can charge $25 to $50 per hour depending on your level of experience and the quality of your work. Painting is very competitive though. Unless you can form a crew, or do high end niche painting, you can't compete as a one man show.

Good luck.

Steve

[aaauger]

It was near impossible for us to find a licensed contractor willing to do a make-ready for a commercial rental property last week. Seems like an opportunity.

[austifornian]

Hey P e n d e j o!

I can tell you upfront. You won't fit in.

[love roses]

He'll be fine. I have a cousin who does construction and electrical work and he's doing pretty well for himself, even if he is just a white guy. Plus, he's around the same age as cvanripe.