All Forum Posts by: Adam Sankowski

Hey  @Justin Rank did you end up going to the meeting?

Hey @Justin Rank I just read through the August zoning changes and it seems like you can still build an accessory carriage house or am I missing this.  Its all rather confusing but I'm planning on attending the meeting and just emailed my alderman too to get clarification and to voice my opinion! 

Wow thanks for the heads up Justin.  I'm going to try and be there.  What is the point of limiting that. I don't even want to use it as an investment I'm happy just as an owner occupied.  Or even restrict it to affordable housing limits I don't care.  So silly to limit growth in these residential neighborhoods but developers snapped their fingers and got a new Orange line stop!  

I get that it might seem sketchy too that someone who also invests is selling you not as great deals. To everyone else's point not everyone has the capital to buy everything.  If you have an agent or PM that you start working with it benefits them to have you be successful because you are where their capital to buy more deals is coming from!!! If they sell you bummer deals then you will quickly find someone else!  I know that a lot of PM's who have good contractors and handy men want to keep them busy during down time too so that they don't find another PM to work for... so if they can supply a great contractor with great investor projects, whether its theirs or their investor clients, they are making money either way and keeping a good contractor happy. 

I wondered at first why people were so willing to help me too. I got advice from others at first that really positively impacted my Indy investing. One investor basically handed me my entire team that I use from agent to PM to even the insurance company and they are all amazing... First off, REI is a team sport and after you do it a bit you realize there are always good deals somewhere and its good to help others. As soon as you have some success its fun to share and help! There is probably only a 5% chance the person will really pull the trigger anyways ha... and also REI is tough and we have to help each other out and stick together.

There are a few people that I gave a lot of advice to, after getting it myself at first, and I have always gained WAY more than I have given.  One investor PM'd me after a post of mine and we talked for a while and I shared all of my experience with him.  We stayed in touch and he's since bought way more properties than me and the other day was like "hey here's a list of all of the lenders I've contacted recently and what their cash out refi options are".  Dude saved me a TON of time and its all because I shared info with him when he was just starting.  Now he's killing it and paying the initial info I gave him back to me with interest :)  

There is always sketchiness with anything related to money but overall I've found that only good comes from sharing REI info with others. I've never had a deal "stolen" from me or anything like that. Maybe if I was a wholesaler but when you're trying to just get a few good deals a year there is more than enough in Indy to go around. Plus your good deal might be a tenant base that another investor won't touch...

Hey, I'm an active investor but looking for passive investor resources for my mom.  She's doing well with her retirement but I need to increase her passive income as we might have some long term care costs coming down the pike and investing in the stock market isn't going to do the trick!

Although I invest in SFH's out of state, the idea of managing something like that on any level to her in terms of dealing with fixing things is not attractive. She likes the idea of investing in multi-family syndications but she's not accredited and not sophisticated. And I'm not a fan of crowd funding platforms, I got burnt bad by one.

So... how do you find out when big, trusted, multi-family syndicators are actually offering something for non-accredited investors?  Is there any resources or tips to track them or is it just reach out to each of them and see what's going on?  Just thought I'd see if anyone has been in a similar spot and had any advice?!? 

And no... not interested in having her loan me money for my own investing or anything like that.  Thanks for your time! 

Hey @Justin Rank the ADU is wha to have my eye on as well. We have the lot size and all other requirements for it! And yes it will be deed restricted as affordable but we would move into it and the unit my 2 fam that it frees up would not be I believe though! Fingers crossed on the ADU. Know any good house builders? Ha

@Alicia Palleschi ha yeah that sounds about what I would expect a 4 family for 1.1m to look like in Somerville at this time. I don't envy anyone trying to buy here right now.  Stay positive though, its just a crazy hot market right now.  I think that you're on to something with the Airbnb though.  With our renovation, and this only would work for owner occupied and it doesn't sound like that's what you're looking for... but anyways, what we've accidentally stumbled upon is a way to turn a 2 family into a 3 family by creating a legal airbnb unit in your unit. Feel free to DM for any future Somerville Airbnb questions cause I'm in the thick of it right now. 

@Justin Rank do you know anything about the updated building code and zoning changes that they were suppose to vote on this summer? 

Hey @Alicia Palleschi I'm actually just about to bring an Airbnb unit in Somerville online.  Just finishing our rebab and it actually passed the official Somerville Airbnb inspection... with a few things to fix of course ha. So, I hate to rain on this deal but Somerville just passed some really strict Airbnb regs and you won't be able to legally rent any of those units under it.  These are the regs that have always been on the books: https://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/short-term-rental-guidelines.pdf

Basically it has to be owner occupied and you can rent a few bedrooms (3 rooms tops) in the unit that you live in and there are strict square footage requirements around that. Renting a full unit out as an Airbnb in Somerville is forbidden. Also, 3 Family homes and up have much stricter regs than 2 families for example.  From how the regs read you might have to install a sprinkler system in the entire building just if you want to rent a bedroom out in your unit if its a 3 family and up.  Even with our two family in order to rent a bedroom in our house they are making us install emergency exit signs and lighting!   Now, everyone breaks these rules anyways but then this just passed a few months ago:  https://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/short-term-rental-airbnb-ordinance-passed.pdf

So everyone rents them illegally anyways because even though there was were always strict regs, there were never really any actual enforcement mechanisms.  WIth this though Somerville passed a $300 per incident fine, which they never had before.  It doesn't go into effect until Jan 2020 so they are giving operators notice but the way its phrased it seems like they will be pulling data from Airbnb -just like they do with NYC and San Fran -enforcing from the Airbnb platform rather than just relying on neighbors complaining.  I get that sense because one of the requirements they passed is that only one Airbnb host can manage one property in Somerville.  The cleaners that we are using own and manage a few units in Somerville and these new regs have them super spooked and scrambling to figure out if they can make them legal somehow... 

Anyways, my point is that you could find yourself setting this up illegally and rocking it for a little bit but then Somerville really coming down on you and that quickly not being an option anymore.  The only way that we are officially getting our Airbnb sanctioned is that even though its our entire 3rd floor its "part of our unit" and the square footage is under the percentage allowed.  

The one catch is if you read through all of the regs there is a Bed and Breakfast operator license you can apply for and if it is a historic building (I think you mentioned that it might be?) it might qualify as an historic B&B but that looks like quite the process to work through there to get that.  I wouldn't do this deal if it relies on short term rentals because Somerville will not allow it.  

But... also, 1.1m for a 4 family is a CRAZY low price right?  Sounds like its close to rent ready too?  Is this off market?  Is it a legal 4?  At that price I feel like you could condo out two of those, depending on the size, and almost cover the purchase price and then have 2 condos left to rent as almost paid off buy and holds? Just a thought. 

Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me as well as I'm actively working through the Somerville Airbnb inspection process and might have new info soon too. 

@Lea C.  Totally just my opinion here but the threat of rent control is no reason to not invest in the area if you can afford to get in.  The quality of the tenant base, historic appreciation, job growth, etc is just too good to be worried about grumblings of rent control.  Mass landlords is def active in this area and are fighting against it.  Also, I don't know what the percentage of the housing stock is rental in the Boston metro area but I'd say its a majority or at least a huge chunk of it, so if this really does become a possible issue I think you would see a lot of landlords coming out of the woodwork to fight it just because of how many of us there are.

@Josue Velney brings up an excellent point with the 2% tax and that developers need to make a certain percentage of their projects affordable housing based.  I think that this is actually a very politically savvy move by Joe Curitone the mayor of Somerville.  On one hand he has a city filled of progressive artists and liberals (myself included) who love affordable housing.  On the other hand he's sitting in some of the fastest appreciating real estate of all time and has developers throwing crazy crazy money around Somerville.  He has to balance both or if one gets pissed off he's gone. I think that he knows that rent control would cause a landlord uprising so his compromise is to push this 2% sales tax on RE sales for affordable housing and to push developers a bit to have to create affordable units.  I think that this is for him to show that he's doing something but that he would never consider formal rent control.  That's my take.  Also keep in mind developers have to create affordable units... not units that have rent control.  They can increase in rent its just tied to the median income levels for the area. 

Here's further evidence of this theory:  There is a building code change that should be voted on in July in Somerville.  Lots of things in this change but one of them is that home owners with enough of a lot size will be able to build an "accessory dwelling" on their property which currently isn't allowed: basically a single family home behind what is already on there.  I've been dreaming of this as I'm currently in a 2 family house-hack and will be able to create a single family for myself while also another rental unit (our current one that we will move out of).  Mayor Joe was actually going door to door the other week cause he need signatures for his reelection campaign.  I brought this up to him directly as there seems to be a bit of push back about this accessory dwelling proposal from some people because of worries about the housing density in the city.   His answer was that he is going to fight for it, and that he believes its a great idea,  but that they would probably be only allowed for owner occupied or if they became rentals they would be capped at an affordable level.  And like I said, that's way different than rent control... it means that the rent can increase it just has to stay in relation to what the median lower income levels of the area are.  But in my case, if I moved into in as an owner occupied unit, the unit that I moved out of wouldn't have any affordable rent controls on it though once it turned back into a rental.  So you have to play the game but there is a lot of flexibility.  

My point being is that you'll see a lot of this... brand new construction that comes with rental rate limits tied into income levels.  But whatever... if that's the price of admission to allow me to build a new home in Somerville where I couldn't before then so be it.  I don't think you'll ever see full on rent control in Boston/ Cambridge/ Somerville.  The mayor(s) know the firestorm that would bring, but you will see lots of talk around creating "affordable units" so that their progressive voting base is also appeased.  Just my thoughts! :) 

Hey Adam, great name :)  (sorry I'm a dad).  I'm what I would call a "successful" house hacker in Somerville. Bought in 2013 and have been fixing it up since.  I have a lot of war stories about the process but although it was rocky at first without a doubt the best financial and life decision of all time.  Obviously totally different market in 2013 than now, and Somerville isn't Newton- although similar in many ways. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk further.   Overall though, big thumbs up to the idea.