All Forum Posts by: Thomas Mattausch

 I would join Craig's cult but Craigslist just does NOT get the traffic that Zillow/Hotpads etc get.

Craig is costing you money.

Ah gotcha! The new Seattle ADU/DADU legislation is real game changer.

Is this a grandfathered duplex or multifamily zoned property? Is the ADU legal? If so how was that process? If not, I'd be concerned at having pay relocation assistance and remove the kitchen if it's discovered.

Heat pumps are great - make sure you educate potential tenants on how frickin' awesome it is to have the most efficient, green, zone specific heating and cooling option available!

Yet another question about how seller financing worked for you on this deal. 

$40k down on $290 is 14%. The advantage to you was a smaller down payment, and the seller got the sales price he wanted. But you're paying 5% instead of 3.5% or so from a conventional lender. Correct? My parents used to buy on seller financing, but that's when interest rates were much higher, so the advantage was getting a lower interest rate. I'm always curious how it can be used today. 

Assuming your note to him is $250k, the place would only have to appraise for $333k for you to refinance at 75% LTV. Have you considered doing that?

@Eugenia K., I can't comment on this ADU code specifically, I just know that generally, nonconforming uses often tighten what can be permitted. I would be (pleasantly) shocked if you could add get an ADU permitted on a nonconforming duplex. Unless you're willing to take the risk that no one will ever report the use (which they probably wouldn't), I doubt you can use all three units. This deal is probably cheap for a reason.

If you subscribe to the times you click "My Account -> Newspaper Archive" and you can search back over 100 years. It's fun! Make sure to use exact phrase syntax in quotes, i.e. "123 Main St" not 123 main st. I found the original advertisement for my house from the 20s advertising that it had a separate unit in the basement which helped me get my own nonconforming duplex status recognized and permitted.

Is it a grandfathered duplex in a single family zone? If so, non-conforming uses often disqualify it properties from many zoning uses and options. Not sure if this applies to ADUs.

If you can sufficiently prove it was used as is back to when the zoning use would have been legal (perhaps as far as the 50s), you could legalize it's use. The Seattle TImes archives can be useful for this. 

I've tried all the suggestions here and I can't get any of these methods to work for me. Also tried all the suggestions in this well-written blog post by another inspired seeker of readability: 

https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/adding-paragraphs-in-zillow-should-not-be-this-hard/

I get disallowing HTML, but why ASCII? ...but it's unbelievable...there's got to be a way to make ads readable.

Craigslist still allows plenty of formatting. For some time I've been forced to resort to putting a link to my craigslist ad in my Zillow ad :)

Anyone with the holy grail protip???

@Vishal Sood Scroll up :) 

Looks like the coffee shop in Starbucks headquarters...never been there!

I'd recommend Dulcie Patner at Umpqua, Susan Henry at Washington Federal, Jackie Shuey at Movement Mortgage. Those three are good with investors. Feel free to use my name. 

As @Jay Hinrichs suggests, you cannot get a regular consumer mortgage for this project, which will add expense. 

The real value here is that your mother is going to sell you the property for much less than its worth. Think of it this way: if you had $150k but no lot (let's say that's the market value of the land), would you go out and buy a lot and build a house? 

I would encourage you to not have financial responsibility for this build and sale being a success. If you sell, I think you will likely end up with more money than if you to figure out real estate development from the (literally and metaphorically) ground up. You will also get more money if you offer it for sale with builder friendly terms such as carrying the mortgage yourself during development, but you will have to wait to get paid, and that brings us to the main rub: getting your mother paid. Does she want the $50k now? If so, you may be forced to take a private loan, or see if a bank in your area will give you flavor of construction loan. If there's a way to avoid having to transfer it into your name and then sell it again, that should save you money as well depending on your state's taxes.