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Updated about 8 years ago, 10/31/2016

User Stats

54
Posts
27
Votes
Aksel A.
  • Real Estate Consultant
  • Boston, MA
27
Votes |
54
Posts

New Entrepreneur in the Family

Aksel A.
  • Real Estate Consultant
  • Boston, MA
Posted

Greetings fellow members,

I first to thank the BP platform owners and community for providing the forum, tools and systems to help newcomers in the REI arena getting up to speed and moving along with their careers.

We are entrepreneurs from the Boston area with an international cosmopolitan background. The decision to open an account here and post our experience(s) was initially motivated by the upcoming major investment we are facing, and we wanted to share our experience.

As first time home buyers, the closing contract is imminently due (in the order of days). This would be our primary residence for at least a few years before moving on accordingly.

Mainly, we know this will be a challenge. We are talking about a centenarian house in a strategically privileged location (Malden, MA, near the orange line).

The main challenge we are facing has to do with the house support from the basement beams and columns.

- Slight tilt/landsliding in the front facing edge due to insufficient column support.This was evidenced by the marble test (rolling at accelerated speed toward the edges) and a few auto-closing doors. We plan to perform a solid steel column job.

- Similar to above, but regarding the kitchen porch. It is definitely not 100% horizontal, and the porch doors don't fully line with their enclosure. Not sure yet whether we should do a cement/foundation job for the porch or just re-do the porch entirely.

Our adventure here is going to allow us to go through the entire process of flipping/rehabbing our house, but... without ANY of the thorough experience that some veterans may have here. So we'll learn the hard hands-on way.

That said, the numbers do line up and the risks seem largely mitigated, so we are pretty confident this will be a good way to get into the business.

Looking forward to connect with you guys, thanks in advance and kinds regards,

Aksel

User Stats

1,515
Posts
463
Votes
Rosston Smith
  • Investor
  • Warner Robins, GA
463
Votes |
1,515
Posts
Rosston Smith
  • Investor
  • Warner Robins, GA
Replied

Hello welcome to Bigger Pockets!

User Stats

1,515
Posts
463
Votes
Rosston Smith
  • Investor
  • Warner Robins, GA
463
Votes |
1,515
Posts
Rosston Smith
  • Investor
  • Warner Robins, GA
Replied

Hello welcome to Bigger Pockets!

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User Stats

3,269
Posts
2,367
Votes
Ann Bellamy
  • Lender
  • Tyngsboro, MA
2,367
Votes |
3,269
Posts
Ann Bellamy
  • Lender
  • Tyngsboro, MA
Replied

Welcome, @Aksel A.

You'll find that many properties in the Boston area are 100 years old, or more.  It's not uncommon to find properties built prior to 1850, and occasionally even back to the 1700s.  

Some of these have a solid enough structure that the floors are largely level, but structural work is pretty common in our area.

The porches, however, are frequently built to slant downward from the house to shed water/snow.  it sounds as if you have other issues in your particular property, even in the porch, but I wanted to point that out so that you were aware than slanting porches are sometimes intentional.

User Stats

2,251
Posts
533
Votes
Mike Hurney
Pro Member
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Boston, MA
533
Votes |
2,251
Posts
Mike Hurney
Pro Member
  • Real Estate Investor
  • Boston, MA
Replied

@Aksel A. Welcome.

I usually put new footings (minimum 4' deep w/sonotubes) for porches and basement columns if there's any question.

As to whether there's settling, that's easy to check at the joists but jacking part of a structure back up is a little complicated depending on the structural elements and the amount of settling. I've done a number of 3 decker porches in Roslindale.

  • Mike Hurney