Matt S.

Interviewer:

Matt, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Matt Silk:

Thanks for having me on I am Matt Silk, the CEO of TMW capital. We are an investment company based here in Austin, Texas. We invest in residential real estate. We have two portfolios that we’ve been building for three years now. We have 28 properties under management right now in Travis County and Williamson County, all single-family homes and condos that we’ve been acquiring and renovating and leasing out as long-term buy and hold over the last three years.

Interviewer:

So Matt, could you tell me a little bit about where you live the city and state that you live in and a little bit about your home there?

Matt Silk:

I’m in Austin, Texas which, if you’re not familiar with Austin it’s been growing like crazy for the last probably 15 years. I moved here in 2009 cause I was growing and scaling my tech company. We came down here had founded the company in San Francisco and we are the stereotypical folks who moved to Texas to grow and scale and a more cost-effective place. So I was a cash strapped entrepreneur for a long time. And after selling my company decided to split my time between real estate and early stage tech investment. So, I was here for 10 years, just focusing on my company, working 24 seven finally had a couple of dollars and real estate was one of the things that I wanted to flip a lot of my investment dollars into. And having made that decision for myself, a lot of my investors, friends, colleagues, and other folks decided that I was onto something putting, putting some money to work in Austin in long-term buy and hold investments. And all of a sudden I was I was a fund manager, so here I am three years later. And my wife and I actually started the started and run the funds and we have 28 properties under management currently.

Interviewer:

Tell me about tell me how did you feel when you first got the first annual property value assessment from the County for your properties?

Matt Silk:

So, I can tell you having really started in real estate three years ago being a former tech guy, I didn’t know everything about what I was doing. I was learning some stuff on the fly and I was juggling so many different things to really turn this fund into a business. I kind of ignored the property tax values and assessments for a while, assuming that, you know, I wasn’t getting ripped off. But every year I would get, you know, a hundred different mailings about different services that claim that they could save me money and protest my property taxes, and it was always one of those things that I wanted to get to, I was thinking about, but I didn’t know which company to go with. I didn’t know, one from another and finally, a couple of years in I started talking to some friends and people more experienced than I, and started looking into companies. This year was actually the first year that I did it and I talked to five or six different companies and ended up going with Home Tax Shield.

Interviewer:

So, what was it about those annual property value assessments from the County that made you think there might be a reason you needed a property tax protest service like Home Tax Shield?

Matt Silk:

I would say again, it was more that I didn’t really know what I didn’t know. And when you saw most of the advertisements from companies like Home Tax Shield, there’s no risk, you’re not paying anything unless they save you money. So, it’s more, just a matter of, you know, is this a project I want to put some time into, and do I want to collect all this information and form a partnership/relationship with a company that’s going to take care of this? So I looked at the values and I knew I was paying a lot of money, but I really didn’t know. So, I would say I was pretty, pretty ignorant and I didn’t know what I didn’t know until I dove in and really started talking to friends in the industry that, you know, they were telling me they, they protest every single year just to try to save whatever cash they can. So, this year I basically decided to not be lazy and figure this out. And when I dove in, I ended up saving thousands and thousands of dollars. So I’m very glad I did. So the numbers, the numbers seemed high, but I didn’t really have a relative value or way to assess whether I was getting a good deal or not. And across 28 properties some of them, I was actually getting charged a fair value in some of them, I could save a lot of money by protesting. So it was a real, it was a real mixed bag.

Interviewer:

You had never protested your property taxes before, correct?

Matt Silk:

Yeah. I mean, I was, I was overwhelmed by all the different flyers and I think I had a little bit of a analysis paralysis, not knowing who to go with, not knowing who to trust and not really believing, you know, this isn’t going to cost me anything. So I think I put my head in the sand and just avoided it because there’s a thousand other things to do as a fund manager, property manager landlord you know, you have maintenance issues that are coming up. I had more than enough to do that. I kind of just assumed, you know, my tax goes with my tax bills. I can’t really protest my property taxes and I kind of assumed the worst that all these services were just going to be a big waste of time. That was my, that was my knee jerk reaction and not knowing what I didn’t know about the industry and the space. It just seemed like something I’ll deal with this next year. I’ll deal with this later. And then finally this year I had some cycles and decided to make it happen. And now I’m mad at myself for not doing it earlier because you know, the savings build on each other. Once you reset (or lower) your property tax value, that’s what your next year is property taxes are going to be based on. So, we’re absolutely going to test every year, moving forward, because we found a great service with Home Tax Shield and kind of reset our bar at a much better place which is going to help save us money every year in the future. Hopefully we won’t have to protest every year. But you know, we’ll see what happens especially with, you know, all the changes around COVID I’m fully expecting prices on the assessments go way. I think next year is going to be a really busy, busy year for landlords and companies like Home Tax Shield, protesting rather inflated values because the States are going to try to push things up because they need to make up revenue somewhere.

Interviewer:

Interesting. So how much money did Home Tax Shield save you in 2020?

Matt Silk:

I don’t have the exact number, but it was thousands. I mean, it was like $5,000 or $6,000, I think. So it was a significant amount of money. And as I said, the more important thing that people don’t realize and don’t think about being is the compounded savings. One of the great things as that we got in our report for Home Tax Shield is, they really showed us the savings over the next five years. And it’s an order of magnitude because your property tax basis is going to be based on whatever it was last year with some agreed upon increase. Saving money now is going to save you money for years and years into the future and help hopefully avoid doing those protests in the future as well.

Interviewer:

You sound like you are, we’re really quite pleased to get this report and get all of this actually going, tell me about your reaction to knowing that even though you procrastinated on it at a couple of years, you finally made like a really good move to save yourself some money. 

Matt Silk:

Oh, we were ecstatic. So, I mean, when I send out my investor reports and show them the savings this year, they’re going to be ecstatic. They’re probably going to be surprised, you know, why the numbers didn’t do what it’s done the last couple of years. And I’ll let them know exactly what service I used and encourage them for those that live in Texas to use Home Tax Shield.   It’s absolutely something that I can recommend, partnering up with, with a great provider that can drive a service like this.

Interviewer:

What was the whole process for you as you signed up with Home Tax Shield?

Matt Silk:

It was incredibly easy. I would say it took a matter of, you know, a minute or two per property to sign up. You fill in a really simple online form. I did have to send over some documentation just in case they need, like my LLC documentation, my N various documentation that, any service on your behalf is going to need to prove they actually own the property. But once I collected a bunch of documents and filled out those forms I was basically in a hands-off mode. It was wonderful that I didn’t have to do anything different in the different counties. We have properties in two different counties so they all have different deadlines and timelines. Home Tax Shield kept me up to speed and up to date on, you know, what the timelines were and set clear expectations as to when I should be hearing about their results when I should be getting the new letters from the state. So I got emails along the way, letting me know one particular County was delayed. I had no idea, but Home Tax Shield, kept me informed. Every time they gave me an update, everything came true. When I got the letters from the, from the counties it was right on the same schedule. And probably the best part is when I got my updates from Home Tax Shield, after the protest, they actually consolidate everything into a fun level view. So, I actually got a nice spreadsheet that broke it down. My first fund and my second fund gave me the roll-ups let me see on a property by property basis, exactly how I did basically one line in the spreadsheet per property. But then I can also see the total to see what the assessed values were to see what they saved me per property, to see what they say to me overall. And then also, as I’ve mentioned earlier, the projections of the five-year savings. So I had a great spreadsheet that I can use as we analyze the portfolio. And I can also send that directly off to my investors. So it was a beautiful report that, you know, I’m happy to send off with some color commentary to my investors and let them know. Home Tax Shield did a great job. It made it very easy for me. And like I said, other than that sign-up process and sending over documents, I didn’t have to do anything, but sit back and wait to hear the good news. So it was a very easy process for me.

Interviewer:

Would pulling together those documents be a complicated process for homeowners? 

Matt Silk:

Not complicated at all. I mean, if you’ve ever been through a loan process, this is 10 times easier. You’re basically just handing over your ownership, a copy of your ownership documents to say that you own the property because a Home Tax Shield is representing you on your behalf. So they just have to know that you own the property. We did share some information and we kind of went back and forth on a few of the properties. So we bought a number of the properties on the wholesale market. And we did renovations. So we did provide some documentation about what we did to those properties to help make a good case. If you think about you have someone advocating on your behalf, arguing with a city organization, you want to arm them with as much information as possible. We probably spent, you know, 15 or 20 minutes on a couple of the properties, just walking through, you know, what we had done, what we had purchased it for just to position the argument in the best possible light. And we were very successful. We ended up actually getting the assessed values down to our purchase price as opposed to some of the after renovation prices. So there’s a lot of nuances to those conversations, but it was well worth it to spend the 15 minutes on a couple of the properties. But in general, it’s sending over a couple of documents. It’s nothing like doing your income taxes or doing a loan. It’s a lot easier. You’re really just sending over a couple of documents that you probably have on hand as a property owner. Probably a more complex case in that we are a fund and we put all of our properties into individual LLCs. So we have a lot more documents than most per property. Your average property owner probably just has their closing doc because they have it in their own name. So depending on the complexity of your business structure this could get more complex, but I’m probably one of the more complex examples. So I basically had to provide three documents per, per property. So very simple, easy, and anyone that’s in this space and took the time to set up those entities is going to know exactly what they need.

Interviewer:

Did you ever have to appear in person with the County for any hearings as part of your protest? 

Matt Silk:

I traded emails on pretty much everything from the comfort of my home or my couch with the Home Tax Shield team. I never appeared in person. As I said, I might’ve spent a few minutes talking about individual properties. I don’t think I even picked up the phone. I don’t think we talked about it on the phone. I think we just traded some emails and clarified some questions and provided a couple more documents. So it was all asynchronous, incredibly easy and done from the comfort of my own home. So, other than getting those updates, I never appeared in person. I didn’t need to know where to go in Travis County versus Williamson County or what the deadlines were. So all of the complexity of the actual protests and the in-person or virtual, I’m not even sure how they did the protest this year. I was hidden from all of that, which was wonderful and exactly what I was looking for.

Interviewer:

From start to finish, tell me about how long the process took for you.

Matt Silk:

As we talked about before, the initial setup was a few minutes for property. Once you fill out a basic form we did actually have to sign a contract, but they integrated directly with an e-sign system. So after I had filled out a couple pieces of information about the property it directly inputted into a contract, which I was able to e-sign. So we’re talking about maximum five to 10 minutes per property. And then a few of our properties because we had bought them wholesale and done renovations. We did go back and forth and provided a little bit more documentation. So, you know, worst case scenario, we’re talking about 30 minutes per property, and I’m kind of aggregating over a few weeks some back and forth that happened. So, once I had filled out the initial information, like I said, call it five minutes per property, send some initial documentation, sign, the contracts, everything was electronic, click, click, click, and done. I mean, I didn’t have to print out on it to sign and enough to scan anything. They made it incredibly easy. You can do it on your phone, even, you don’t even need a laptop or computer. And then as they went through a property by property, because we did protests all 28 properties there were some questions going back to, what did we purchase? What did we purchase it for? You know, how can we position this best during the protest? So that was more of the going back and forth over the next couple of weeks. And then once the actual hearing started, there was some additional back and forth with some clarification.

Over the period of a couple of months, I personally didn’t spend more than a couple hours of time. I have no idea how much time Home Tax Shield spent and that’s the beauty of the service. I don’t need to know. I knew exactly what I was paying for. And I ended up with great, great savings across the board and doing very, very little work. It was exactly the experience I was hoping for and the team over delivered not only on the savings, but also as a fund manager, the documentation being able to have a really nice, clean, simple spreadsheet that shows me each of the individual properties, all of the relevant information and the roll-ups by fund made it my job very easy.

Every time they, they sent me a deliverable, it was a sent in such a way that it saved me a ton of time and effort, which was which was very nice in, in talking to some friends and colleagues in the space as well. I don’t think other services have taken that approach and really catered to the fund manager use case like myself which is, you know, a significant portion of the market. There’s a lot of people that own one, one rental property or own their own property. But someone like myself who is trying to juggle 28 properties I need some special care and attention and a Home Tax Shield, I think went well above and beyond to make my life easier, which will make me a customer for life.

Interviewer:

Was Home Tax Shield able to help you arrive at a fair tax value for your properties?

Matt Silk:

I think absolutely. I am very happy with the service. I think the numbers ended up playing out very well. We got some great property tax savings, so we’re, we’re very happy and I think they, they delivered on that fair property tax value that we were after. I think we probably did a little bit, a little bit better than that in a number of cases.

Interviewer:

Did you think that the price that you paid for the service with Home Tax Shield was fair?

Matt Silk:

The price that we paid a fair I actually really like the structure that Home Tax Shield came up with. It’s very easy to get your arms around. It’s a nominal annual fee along with a percentage of the savings. So the amount of money out of pocket to have them watch my properties and take care of everything is, is a couple bucks a year. And then any real bill is based on a percentage of your savings and they are in line or better than every other company that I looked at. So combine that with the stellar service. I think I got a great deal, a great value and got much better service than I really expected. I was the guy that ignored this for a number of years and did my diligence looked through a number of different companies and chose Home Tax Shield and frankly was overwhelmed and overjoyed with the level of service and attention and for the price considering it’s basically no dollars out and it’s just a percentage of your savings.

It is a great deal and you’d be crazy not to do it as a property owner.

Interviewer:

How happy would you say you are with Home Tax Shield?

Matt Silk:

I am a huge proponent of them. I’ve actually posted on my social media and told my whole network about them. So, I’m incredibly happy with Home Tax Shield and I would highly recommend them to anyone. That’s as a property owner. As I said before, you’d be crazy not to protest your property and make sure you’re setting up your property tax basis, not only for the savings for this year but to reset your basis for years and years to come.

Interviewer:

What are you going to be able to do with those savings that you are receiving from these reassess property tax values?

Matt Silk:

So here in Austin with single-family homes and condos, we’re not very cash-rich. It’s more of an appreciation-type play with single-family homes and condos. Different geographies are different. But most of our properties we’re banking on that appreciation. So the extra cash flow is very much appreciated. We’ll probably be able to do a slightly bigger distribution to our investors or have some extra free cash for a renovation or doing some enhancements to the properties. Having $5,000 or $10,000 grand extra laying around in our fund is a very welcome thing. So TBD what we actually do with the cash. But we’re generally, you know, running a very tight ship, so $5,000 to $10,000 extra and the in our fund is a very welcome addition.