What are your best practices and advice when flipping in Boston?

[Hovig C.]

Greetings Bigger Pockets Community!

Along with my business partner, I've been doing flips in Central, MA for the better part of a decade. We've learned lots of the building codes, regulations, rent and valuation prices and lots of management skills along the way.

Recently a property in Downtown Boston came up on your radar (1st floor commercial, 2nd-5th residential) and it's a larger project than we've worked on before. It's also in the very high density Back Bay neighborhood and we just wanted to pick peoples' brains about what to look out for and what regulations or best practices would be best to utilize.

Your response can be from any angle such as working with contractors, finding rental comps and tenants, Boston-specific building codes, etc. Basically we just wanted to tap some knowledge on here about what to look out for and how to add value in this condo slash commercial buildout.  

For example, one specific question that came up was about sprinkler systems and when they are necessary. But overall, we wanted to get an impression from you guys about what we "don't know that we don't know" in this particular market expansion.

Thanks!
Hovig

[Jason Turgeon]

City of Boston ISD is a horror show. They are completely underwater at 1010 Mass Ave (the ISD location) and you can expect long delays for everything. They'll need every one of their allowable 30 days to review your plans. You may need to visit them a dozen times to get your fire suppression system signed off. You pull one inspection for electrical, another for building, a 3rd for plumbing, you go to City Hall to get a dumpster permit ($20 per parking space per day, it adds up in a hurry), you'll need police details for anything that blocks traffic, if you cross a sidewalk with anything bigger than a shovel  you'll need a bond that can only be obtained by crossing the street, taking an elevator up 5 flights of stairs, and giving someone $100 cash. And absolutely no one you deal with is ever happy. The permitting staff in the city are some of the most miserable human beings on the planet. And that's just the City. You haven't yet dealt with the NIMBYs at the Back Bay Neighborhood Association, the contractors who charge double their normal rate to put up with traffic and daily parking tickets on their trucks and the higher costs of everything, the neighbors making demands that you compensate them, etc.

And I'll come right out and say it. Our building inspector was shaking us down for bribes, although he was careful to do it in a way that he wouldn't get caught. We didn't pay, and it cost us several months of down time while we waited for inspections and permit approval mid-project - and this was on a simple 2-family house. A friend of mine ended up making a $500 payment to a man in a bar in JP just to get the interior renovations he was doing himself on his private residence out of permitting hell. My physical therapist with a fancy downtown location had their certificate of occupancy held up for 4 months after construction finished, and I'm 100% certain it's because his boss wouldn't pay the right person. That division of Boston is still very old school.

Not sure how this compares to Central Mass. Maybe you've dealt with all this before and it doesn't phase you. But having done 2 renovations in Boston, I will never do a 3rd in the city itself.