All Forum Posts by: Brian Marcy

Check out InterNACHI - they offer online training with membership. I’ve been a home inspector for 3 years and would not recommend online courses as your only source of education, but they will give you a good knowledge base so you can recognize what you don’t know and network with more experienced people. 

I found out rents have gone up enough that I could get what I wanted without messing with an attic bedroom. 

I currently own a duplex in Grand Rapids near downtown GVSU.  I am interested in adding a bedroom in the attic to get more rental income and I am having a hard time finding requirements for it to all be legal.  

The duplex is mirror image and one side of the attic is already finished.  During my last certification the inspector said something to the effect of "this is kind of a cool room, but you can't use it as a bedroom."  It has a closet, smoke detector, overhead light, multiple electrical receptacles, and two sets of windows.  Due to peaks in the roof, square footage is difficult to measure, but I believe it to be over 100 sq ft at areas with the ceiling over 7 feet.

It is currently unconditioned space, so I was thinking of adding baseboard heaters.  I would like to do that on the mostly completed side and rent it as a three bed instead of a 2 bed with bonus room.   Once that's finished I'd like to finish the other side in the same way.

Is there a good resource describing what will be necessary to make the attic space legally qualify as bedrooms in Grand Rapids?

I am looking for a general contractor that can do or manage a roof, kitchen, bath, some siding repairs, and cosmetic paint/carpet type stuff. Does anybody have a reliable GC?

I have been house hacking in a duplex for about a year and I'm trying to work on my next deal. I am drawn to small apartment buildings because they seem to have good cash flow potential, multiple tenants under one roof means any one vacancy hurts less, there's less maintenance than have individual free standing properties, and they get me into the commercial world so I can be a more qualified borrower when I'm ready to make the jump to buying properties for NNN leasing. When I say small I mean 10-20 units, although I'm happy to scale up if I can get creative using the resources I'm about to describe.

I don't have a ton to work with (could maybe scrape together $20k if I sold some stuff) but it wouldn't qualify me for traditional financing.  Furthermore, I'm recently self employed so I wouldn't be able to provide two years of tax returns.  Traditional financing is out which leads me to the master lease with option to buy.

Now I'm trying to learn the best way to find and approach sellers.  I'm seeing some properties on loopnet but it sounds like they are often leftover crap, especially since I'm using the free version.  I've read on here that brokers are the best way to find commercial property, but the two challenges I see with that are how they will get paid if I master lease instead of buy, and it also sounds like the places I'm looking for are too small to be worth their time.

I'm thinking it's a numbers game and I should be sending offers to every owner I can find and hope somebody says yes before the post office runs out of stamps.  What does the Bigger Pockets world think?  Do I need to chill out and wait until I'm more qualified? Is there a better way to search?  Is there a better way to finance?

I recently upgraded their appliances and I also updated the other side which gives me a good idea of the work involved and I can afford it. The housing authority won't approve or deny the raise yet. It sounds like the tenants have to accept the new rate and then Section 8 will determine the cost split. Is that normal? It seems backward to me. 

I own a duplex as an owner/occupier and rent out the other side.  I inherited my tenants from the last owner who did not raise rent in 4 years.  In that time there has been significant development in the neighborhood with new restaurants, condos, and a major expansion of a university's local campus.  Demand for housing has gone way up and prices have predictably risen as well.  

I recently applied to have the Section 8 rent brought up to reflect the current market.  My request was on the absolute bottom of current rates but still represents a 37% increase for my tenants, which has gone over exactly as expected.  I'm sure I can get the price from new tenants without government assistance, but there's a good possibility they will be students so I will have to account for higher vacancy rates.  The difference of about $3000 per year seems to justify that to me if my current tenants can't make the new rate work.

This is my first rental so I'm looking for insight from some of the more experienced members here on Bigger Pockets.  Would you work with the current long term tenants to adjust more gradually, let them walk and find somebody new, or do some third option I am not seeing?  It sounds like they need to agree to the new rate before Section 8 will determine the contribution split between the state and the tenants, so I'm not sure how much of an increase this represents for them.  Any insight on how that might be determined would be appreciated as well.