All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Jay Hinrichs if the price was the only thing hard to swallow about this situation, I could stomach it better.  

But, high price and lousy work?  

My latest roof didn't even last six months.  

Come on!

Hi, Did you find an architect?  

Yes, I too am looking for an architect.  

Did you find one?  

The one I have has had my hand drawn plans on large graph paper for two months.  

I've not gotten anything from him...

@Jim K. I appreciate your response.  

Especially the acknowledgment that trying to operate here as a brown woman has been a nightmare.

In the six years I have been here, I have never met anyone that did not ask, where are you really from? After answering their question of where I moved from, California.

Pressed, I share that I was born in El Salvador, and most tell me they are glad those kids are in cages at the border.

When they ask my son where he is really from, they begrudgingly concede after he answers that he was born in California.

I get asked how I have no accent, have such a strong English vocabulary, and if I married white to get that last name.

The actual kicker is when they say I must be so happy that my children pass as white.

My house in Polish Hill was built in 1908 and has been owned by one slumlord after another since then.

I tried to see if I could demolish it and start fresh. The city permit department told me that if I did so, they could not guarantee I would be able to rebuild since, as it stands now, it is so close to the next house. Even if I made it five feet from that neighbor, I asked, like the house on the other side? Nope, no guarantee.

It truly is that people stay in the neighborhood they were born in, and many never venture out. Pittsburgh has 90 neighborhoods to show how tiny one neighborhood is.

I've never seen anything like this behavior or mindset and lived in plenty of states.

I am glad you recognize your innate position in this community and that you delight in it.

I am most glad that you received my sincere response without irritation or animosity.  

Thank you, Frinée

Yes, I second PNC.  

They have a HELOC that you can choose to lock in a rate or choose to have a variable rate that you can adjust as you go. It costs $200 to unlock and then lock it when the interest goes down.

You can withdraw for 10 years, and you have to keep it open for I believe three years.  

I'm looking into it.  A couple of months ago it would have cost me around $790 to get out $100k.  I'm not sure what it is now.  

It was a very interesting package, and one I have not found anywhere else.  

I'm interested as well!

Thank you,

Frinée Warren

 Hi there @Jim K., I live in Pittsburgh now but am from out of state.  

I bought a rental property soon after arrival, in 2018, and I can not say enough about how insular this place it.  

It has been almost impossible to find tradesmen willing to work with me and do quality work.   

I am now about to be on my third roof in five years, as the first two were not done well.  The second flat roof sailed in the last wind storm we had, as the contractor did not glue the roof down well.  

I wish I would have known how challenging it would be to find quality help.  For the $86,000 cash I have put in so far, I got it gutted, took out all the walls, put in a solid foundation, and leveled the floors. Oh, and of course the $21,649 second unglued roof.   

It took years to find a contractor that did not want to just put another layer on top of what I knew, with my limited knowledge, was horrific slumlord level maintenance.  And then that contractor did that shoddy job on the roof, so?  

Lest you begin to think I am lowballing, I have paid what each contractor and roofer has asked for in cash, without hesitation.  

This place is culturally bias in such a complete way that it daily seems unreal.  

I bought in an A-, B+ neighborhood I believe, Polish Hill, in the city of Pittsburgh.  

This rental has amazing views.  

It pays to be from here, white, and a man, if you want to get projects off the ground. 

I imagine this won't be a well received post, but, it has been my reality, my lived experience.  

And, I think, you were looking for feedback on the viability of investing here.  
 

If I had it to do over again, I'd never have bought this rental.  

And, going forward, unless I am intimately familiar and accepted within a culture, or look like everyone in that culture, I will not invest in it.  

I wish I would have put all that cash into paying off our residential mortgage and saved the rest.  It would have taken 19 months to pay off our 2017 mortgage when we first moved here at the rate we were paying in our old state.  

Now I've got too much into this rental to get out of it.  I've got to see it through to recoup all our cash.   

I am looking for financing options to complete this.  Our current mortgage on this is $100k at 5.3%, 30 year.  

Option 1: Take a HELOC on primary residence $100k. Use that to pay off the current mortgage on this two unit investment property. Get a hard money loan to finish the rehab on the two unit property, possibly around $160k. That way the large interest rate from the hard money lender is not on so much money.

Option 2:  Take a hard money loan on the entire thing, so the current $100k mortgage and the $160k rehab cost.  Leave our primary residence alone.  

Option 3: Leave both mortgages as is. Take a $100k HELOC on primary residence and use it to pay for most of the rehab on investment units. Use the cash we do have to complete the remainder. We have around $30k, and will earn the rest as we go...

Thoughts?  Input?  

I know we overpaid on everything.  I have a new contractor and am getting three bids for all aspects-electrical, mechanical and plumbing.  

Thanks in advance for your attention.  

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $150,000
Cash invested: $150,000

2 unit occupancy house.

Three levels--top, street, basement.

Outstanding view of city.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

The neighborhood and the view.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Craigslist.

How did you finance this deal?

30 year loan

How did you add value to the deal?

gutting it and re doing everything

What was the outcome?

still working on it

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Never move to a place and buy without first understanding the culture. Pittsburgh is highly insular as a culture and it has been almost impossible to find honest, solid workmen. I'm on my third roof, for instance.