All Forum Posts by: Alex Hal

I am looking at an inn that sits within walking distance to a big lake in a nice area in NY state, Catskills.  The inn has been closed for 5 years without any upkeep.  I am attracted to this property as it has old world charm and the fact that its close to a lake and within a few minutes drive to attractions, yet still remote.

The inn has 30 rooms, a game room, fire place, banquet hall, commercial kitchen, pool, etc.

The asking price is reasonable and there is demand for rentals.  My initial idea is to convert the rooms into apartments, with some being efficiency and others 1-2 bedrooms.  I still have yet to call the town to find out about zoning rules.  I remember listening to a bp speaker about how he converted a deserted mall into storage facility.  That seemed like an ingenious idea.

I am not interested to run the property as an inn and employ people full time.

Besides the conversion to apartments, what are some other possibilities for an old inn that can generate a revenue stream?

you can use cliff gordon in monticello, really good experience.

Thank you gents.   I have not heard of costar.  I'll check it out. 

Hi. I have a professional office building in Monticello NY and I'm having difficulty renting offices. There's a real estate office that occupies part of the space and lawyers- so it's definitely attractive. It's in the center of town close to post office, courts, stores, etc .

Here's what I have done.:

1. I posted ads on craigslist,

2. sent personal mailings to professionals (over a 100) that I was able to find online,

3. I have the listing with the RE broker that's on prem.

4. The lawyers offered to distribute the info at the monthly bar association meetings.

5. I spoke to people in the community about advertising in the local newspaper and they unanimously said newspapers readership of local papers has fallen.

I haven't had any showings in 6 months and the broker tells me that the asking rent is competitive.

I plan to reach out to chamber of commerce tomorrow. What can I do to get the offices rented?

Doing some deals in Monticello, next to the new casino.   Hit me up if you want to share notes

 In south brooklyn,  marine park. 

It's not a huge house,  about 1700 sq ft.  Converting to 2 family would not be easy unless I can make the basement into an apartment.   I'll talk to my attorney to see if it's doable.   Thanks for the suggestion Jason. 

There's a house for sale across the street from my primary residence. The house was occupied by a woman who passed away and now her nephews are selling it. House prices have been appreciating quickly in brooklyn, ny in the past 5 years. The house is in a bad condition, almost everything is original from 1930. The owner wants 500k cash for it as is unlikely to get a mortgage. Talking to my gc, who did a good and quick job on my primary residence, estimates all in it'd be about 350-400k (including materials) in gut reno lasting 4 months. The ARV is 950k. There doesn't seem to be much profit after carrying cost, real estate fees and possible delays. I'm still hopeful that there are some innovative ways to make this work. Lowering the price being one. Agreement to have seller hold ownership until after repairs/sale to avoid carrying costs. Anything else?

Thanks in advance. 

Hi, so I found a good deal on a property that has 3 buildings (2 office, 1 residential) in the Catskills NY area. The purchase price was 230k . We agreed on a price and I had the inspector out and he said that plumbing, electric, structurally everything was in good working order. Roofs on all the buildings needed to be repaired, with the largest office building being the first. The roof is original with additional layers added over the years. Given that it’s the Catskills, snow accumulates on top of the roof for almost the entire winter season.

I asked my RE broker to have a roofer come out and give an estimate for the 2 office buildings. The RE broker found someone reputable and got back to me with a quote of $45K for the big office building and 40K for the smaller office building (would need to be done in next 3 years) – this would include tear down, using shingles that last 30 years, repairing mortar joints on chimney, etc. The roof has lots of elevations, runs, etc. She did not even wait to tell me the roofer cost, she went to the sellers and they immediately dropped the price to 200k . She is asking me I am still interested in the deal.

Right now my calc shows the property cashflows $600 for the month with one vacancy. After the vacancy is filled, that would add another $1,000 / month.

The property is generally in good condition with some upside for appreciation and there are some changes I was thinking about to increase the value, I.e. converting from oil to electric and have the tenants in the residential property pay their own utilities. That wouldyield an additional $400/month. Rents on the 2 units in the residential units would be increased in the next year, as they are at least $100 below market.

My dilemma is that improvement of a roof does not add major value, and given this is considerable cost, I am not sure if it’s still a good deal. With nothing else going wrong, it would take over 2 years of cashflow to pay for the roof.

Is there another way to look at this or structure the deal that would make sense?

@Patrick.  Thank you.  Keeping the thermostat behind locked boxes seems like a good idea.  It will actually monitor the temperature in the unit, and give me control.  

@Peter.  Thank you.  Unfortunately, there is one building which is 4,300 sq ft that has multiple tenants on each floor and only one zone per floor.  i guess this will be tougher to regulate, but from what i have seen this specific building has decent tenants who did not seem to abuse the service.  Now that i am thinking about this, its possible that there is no setting to lower the temperature during nights and weekends.  Good idea on adding a clause in the contract about having windows open.

@Ronald. Thank you. i lived in tall high rises in Manhattan that had no thermostat and sometimes it was colder, and sometimes warmer.  i did not think too much of it and just put on a sweater during the colder days.  Are there guidelines for what constitutes a violation?  Everyone has different heat tolerance.  i think if I can state in my contract that heating up to 70 degrees is included in the rent.  Additional heat will have a nominal fee, which would deter abusers.  After all people can get electric space heaters and regulate the heat if they think 70 is too low or put on a sweater. 

@Colleen, Thank you.  Landlord Stats sounds like an amazing idea, and i would not have to put in a lock box.  There are 3 buildings.  residential unit (2 apartments) is 1,500; office building 1 is 4,300; office building 2 is 2,300 sq. ft.

The 2 office buildings are older, around a 100 years.  maybe i can have the utility company do a heat loss assessment.  The location is up in the Catskills NY area, which tend to get pretty cold in the winter.

Hi, Hopefully posting this to the right forum category.

i did an inspection today on a commercial property consisting of 2 office buildings (4 tenants in one building and 1 tenant in the other with one vacancy) and a residential unit (2 tenants).  Each building has one oil tank and one boiler.  Each tenant has their own thermostat in the office/apartment.  Since there is no way to divide the heating bill evenly, the current seller rolls the heat into the rent.  During the walk through we noticed that some tenants had there heat cranked to 80 degrees, while some kept it at a comfortable 70.   One tenant had the windows open and heat up to 74.  The cost of oil (no natural gas in the area) for the 3 buildings is approximately 9K a year.  That gets expensive and cuts into profits.  

Few questions.

1.  What is the best way to throttle the max temperature a tenant is able to heat the apartment on my dime?  i.e. up to 70 degrees is my responsibility, and after the tenant can use electric heaters.  Is such an approach legal?

3. If there is no way to throttle, how can i monitor the energy consumption from each tenant?  Maybe some sort of a meter exists that can measure how much energy is being emitted to each zone.  i am thinking it would be installed at the boiler.  The boiler on premises resembles the setup in the picture in the link.  boiler

Thanks in advance,

Alex