"Majestic Oak" Project - our 'new-build' portfolio grows!!!

This is our second new construction project. After we joined ventured into the Luxe On South deal, we realized the opportunity in new-build properties which was now accessible to us thanks to our new NerdNight investor group. 

We came across this property through a wholesaler and decided to give it some consideration - even though we had put wholesale deals on the back burner (their margins just had gotten too tight). The property was in a great location in downtown Orlando and the price was right. We made an offer and got it under contract!

For the closing we had to get creative. If just so happened that an investor of ours (who had been interested in the Luxe On South project) loved this deal and decided to GAP fund this project. We set up an LLC for the project and begun securing the HML. There were some negotiations necessary (and a huge learning curve for us again) to work out terms & conditions for the project's LLC which would be agreeable for everyone, but after several conversations with our GAP funder's lawyer, we all signed the dotted line.

Luckily our HML is very easy to work with. Since this is a new construction and we had never funded one before ourselves, we did not realize there would be additional items which have to be provided to the lender to be able to close the deal - in comparison to a flip property. The closing date was set for Friday, April 29th, 2016. and we had submitted all the required items to the HML; or so we thought. There seemed to be a problem with the floor plans and we got caught in a back-and-forth with the lender over plans which met their requirement. Days went by and suddenly we were running into a major time crunch with the building plans. It Turned out that the preliminary plans were not sufficient and we needed a complete set of blueprints 'permitable' by the city. By now it was Thursday - the day before closing.

We called an emergency meeting with our builder and explained the situation only to find out it would take at least five days to draw up a complete set of plans. OK, it was time to apply get inventive. We talked to the wholesaler and negotiated an extension for the closing date - 05/05/16 was the new deadline. The lender stipulated that the plans had to be on their desk by Monday in order for us to close on Thursday 05/05/16. We have to say: Our builder is amazing!!! His architect worked through the weekend on order to have those full sets of blueprints ready for us just in time on the following Monday afternoon. 

Everyone came through in the end and we closed this project on 05/05/16:

900 Maxwell St, Orlando, FL 32804

The permitting stage with the city also took a little longer than anticipated. There were some snags with old permits for this property which were still open from (believe it or not) 1992. A few phone calls and emails resolved this problem just to get hung up on the issue of "proof that the home which used to be on the property had been lived in" before. This tiny detail, at least you would think it should be tiny, created a lot of headache, took a lot of effort, many phone calls, emails, and almost three weeks of time to settle, but this past Friday, July 22, 2016, the permits at the city were approved and construction has begun.

This will be a SFH, two story, approx. 3,500 sqft. in College Park of Orlando.

Stay tuned for updates!!!

August 5, 2016

One interesting point with this project is the change of address. During the permitting stage we realized that the city had re-assigned the house number associated with this property. 900 Maxwell St. has now turned into 888 Maxwell St. (hmmmm...triple 8?)

Other than that, the project is right on target. The floor plan has been staked out, dirt has been delivered to raise the ground level, and plumbing has been installed. We are now waiting for inspection on Monday to move on. 

More updates soon...

August 27, 2016

Exciting times! We have gone vertical...

Yesterday we collected our first draw from the lender from our construction loan. Up to this point our builder has up-fronted the building costs. By the end of next week we should be framing the roof...

We also have the renderings done for this project:

The home is available for pre-sale. 

To be continued...

November 1, 2016

Just as the second floor walls are going up, Hurricane Matthew decides to pay us a visit. Luckily the storm did steer east to its original forecast track lowering the wind gusts in our area only to about 95mph with sustained winds reaching just 45mph. Otherwise this could have been disastrous  for our construction site. We tied everything down really well, supported all the walls as much as possible, and hoped for the best. 

As we ventured out the day after the storm to check on our project, we discovered that a neighbor's tree had fallen across the front yard - missing the house by a foot.

Tree removal and additional clean-up pushed our timeline back a bit, but we have made great progress since then. Today, the second story is up, the roof is on, framing is done, and the electrical wiring plus plumbing are completed. It is starting to look like a home! 

More updates soon...