Built a 56 Unit Passive House Apartment Complex in Georgia. AMA!

[George Yu]

Hey guys my name is George and about a year ago I posted on BP in regards to a 36 unit development that we finished in Moultrie GA. We built it for around 1.5 million, post construction Refi appraisal came out to 2 million(~500k net) and today it has sold for 2.7 million(another ~700k net). Since the post over a year ago there's lots that I have learned. In the last couple years we've only done one complex per year. Typically around the 36 to 48 unit size. But this year we are 90% completed on a largest to date: 56 unit development in Bainbridge Georgia. It's been a really busy year and I haven't really had time to post any thing else on BP because as soon as we finished site work on our 56 units.. we purchased 4 other lots to build on in Dublin(80 units), Americus(80units) and Cairo Georgia(48units). We spent the last year applying for rezoning, variances, city/community meetings, back and forth with engineering etc and finally today everything is ready to build. 

The 56 unit apartment complex that we built this year we used passive House design where we used to buy six on the exterior walls with 6 inches of open cell spray foam insulation. As well as 14 inches in the roof to create an airtight thermal envelope. This theoretically this will help us reduce our HVAC needs by up to 70%. This is important because we include all utilities in our base rents. All electricity, water, gas, trash/sewer and high speed internet is included. The more we save the more we earn. We want to take the responsibility out of the residents hands to get all of this done since we think economies of scale wise it should be a top down effort. At the end of the day hopefully to put some more time and $$ back into the hands of our residents so they can spend it on their families, careers and giving back to the communities around them. 

There is so much I learned about developing. I mean the actual building part is what most think about but thats just one task in a sea of tasks and probably the most straight forward.. Other things from how to have banking relationships, what they ask and look for, what kind of draw headache do they have. How to properly present to a city/community meeting. What areas to purchase in and others to avoid. How much can we afford to pay for the land? Wow all four lots we bought are in federal opportunity zones.. What are those and how to take max advantage of that? 18 or 24 months construction loan? As projects get larger we need more cash. Mezzanine debt model or equity model? What rates to borrow the money at? We want to keep these for cashflow but damn we can sell at such a profit! What do we do now? We want 10,000 units but how can we get there if we have to keep selling existing to build more? Its just a hamster wheel... Prices of lumber are skyrocketing should be buy now and tie up cash for our upcoming devs, ocean freight pricing tripled should we continue ordering from overseas vendors? Our GC is stretched too thin and cant do all of our projects we have to find another shop but everyones so busy! List goes on....

For myself I am nostalgic sometimes and like to look back at photos and videos of my own journey. Sometimes I forget what things that have been done because i'm constantly looking at the future so this way I can look back and see the ideas that i had during that period of my life(right or wrong) and see how far I have come. I also have had lot of interest in the process for developments from my own circle of friends as well as people that have found us online. When I was getting started, there wasn't anyone that I could find online that could really answer my questions or had some videos about it. So i'll be documenting our journey here for anyone that comes after us there will be some bread crumbs. My first mentor said that success leaves clues if you look closely enough. Hopefully a good google or youtube search is all thats needed. Affordability is going to be a huge topic soon so the world needs a much help as it can get since Elon Musk isn't solving that one for us we have to do it ourselves... dang it!

I'll try and update more on BP blog style on the progress and answer any questions that can help anyone who's curious!

ok its 12:33am now and so time to wrap this up...