All Forum Posts by: Bryan Miller

@Andrew Melvil I do this professionally, but if you just want a DIY landing page, I would probably recommend something like Squarespace or Lead Pages. WordPress is great, but you would have to worry about updates. Mailchimp is also starting to offer landing pages, so if you already use them for email marketing, you may want to check them out. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. 

@Kenneth Bullock Honestly, we would like to keep our options open. The duplex is in an area where almost every other house is getting flipped or rehabbed and rented out. It is in a newly designated, "Arts" district with a few new restaurants/breweries, art galleries, etc. We plan on living in it for about two years, then move on to another property. By that point, we (and our real estate agent) believe that the area will be even more desirable, so it could work well to sell it at that point. But, I do want to make sure it still works as a rental if the market takes a big dive. If we were to rent it as a duplex with basic rehab (probably around $165,000 all-in purchase + rehab), we could probably get around $750 for each unit. They currently rent for $650 a month and they aren't in great condition. If we were to turn it into a SFH (probably around $180,000 all-in purchase + rehab), we could get $1,600-$1,700 a month for it. ARV as a SFH should be between $215,000 - $225,000, depending on finishes. Our real estate agent believes that it should easily get around $250,000 in a few years (although I take most predictions with a grain of salt).

At this point, my gut says that unless something major comes up for the estimates on the conversion, we will probably convert it and plan on selling in a few years. Does this sound reasonable, or are we relying too much on "potential" appreciation? 

@Paul Wachtler Thank you for the recommendation! I'll check out the podcast and make sure to think through the consequences of having just 1 unit vs 2 units. 

Hello BP community! My wife and I found a beautiful house from the 1920's that had been converted into a non-conforming duplex back in the 1980's. It has been grandfathered in as a duplex, but we think it brings more value as a SFH. We live in a college town that has seen a huge explosion in apartment construction over the last 10 years and a general tightening of the SFH inventory. These factors combined have contributed to a situation where rents are low for 2/1 units and SFH prices are high for 3/2 or 4/2 houses.

The house itself needs some general work, and I am comfortable estimating the costs on that work, but I am not sure what it would cost to turn it back into a SFH. The house currently has 2 of all the utilities (HVAC - 15 years old, electric - 2 100amp panels, gas, water).

First of all, for people who have done this in the past, did you take out the duplicate of everything so that there was only 1 HVAC system and 1 of each of the meters? What needs to be taken out and what can simply be capped? Do you remember what the cost was for that general conversion? 

Finally, were there any issues that were unique to this type of conversion? The entrances aren't an issue with this property, we are working on financing for this specific situation, and we are checking with zoning to make sure the conversion is doable. Otherwise, I am wondering if there are things that I am missing. 

Thank you so much for your help! Please let me know if I am leaving out any necessary details!

Bryan
 

@Darien Ici Whether or not to pull the trigger depends on a lot of things, but if you are just looking at the math, $400 a month actual profit on $40k invested is a very good return on your money (12%), especially if you consider the extra tax advantages.  

@Ahmed Muztaba You have to understand that lenders want to know that you will be able to continue to pay your mortgage after you close on the loan. One of the best ways to know this is to see that you have stable income coming in every month that will allow you to pay that mortgage. You can think about it like this - a lump sum of money right now will help you make a down payment, but it won't help you make a mortgage payment in 5 or 10 years. A solid, steady job that provides stable income can help you pay your mortgage in 5 or 10 years, though. 

I am a full-time web developer with a couple of different businesses under my belt. Your first step should be trying to prove that your idea is something that people are willing to pay money for (go read The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick). Once you establish that people are actually willing to pay money for your idea, your options are pretty much 1) pay someone to create it (depending on the complexity of the idea, a website will probably run you $10,000+, and an app $25,000+), 2) partner with someone (just know that developers get a lot of people trying to get free work out of them with the promise of success on an unproven idea), or 3) learn to build it yourself. If you aren't a computer person in general, I would probably stay away from trying to build it yourself, unless you really want to learn how to write quality code. So, the question you have to ask yourself is the same question any business person has to ask themself - do I want to spend my money or my time? Also, it is important to remember that unproven ideas aren't actually worth anything.