All Forum Posts by: Annunciata R.

Over the last 4 years I have placed at least 50 offers on properties I had not seen. I purchased 9 last year. I would still purchase a property unseen, heres why

a) if the purchase will be secured by borrowing, it doesnt matter how much I like it, if the lender thinks it is not good security they will not lend.

b) With google maps and other online statistics you can learn about a neighbourhood, the distance to get there, the sort of cars parked on it etc without going through the length of visiting.

I personally would really only need to see a property if I was looking to live in it.

Maybe someone can help me on this, I bought a few lots at the last LA tax deed auction in October. Judging from the tax accessors values online, all the lots I purchased cost less than the last value. Last week I got a check in the post for about $400 . I dont understand how I would be entitled to it as opposed to the previous owner. The value of the property was $90K and decline in value puts it at about $80K, I paid $21K. Im not complaining about the cheque but if I am entitled to the cheque am I right to assume that more cheques are forth coming from the remaining lots I purchased if a revaluation is triggered.

In this case I would agree with Marie Poe and seek redress based on the misinformation. Either seek your money back or at least demonstrate the cost of their error $15K plus architects fee without any gaurantee of a zone change. One thing you/they could consider is how much taxes were owing. So if the taxes were $30K but bids put the price to $62K I think it is only fair they consider at least compensating you for their error out of the profits. Loopnet and Redfin are also good sales outlets if your agent is not already using them.

A proper DD would have included looking at the maps to ascertain the zoning as opposed to relying on word of mouth. Have you considered a zone change, or selling it at a profit rather than try going back to the county. I purchased a tax deed for $20K which had a house on it. Once I started making enquiries the sale got rescinded. I would have like to fight it but I wanted to keep a good relationship with the LA county so I let it slide.

@Aaron Mazzrillo Thank you for your feedback, you will most certainly be welcome at the house warming although this lot is zoned light commercial. The prices may have come down a little since you and your freind last looked into this though. I cant remember the long beach supplier that gave me a formal estimate but I have just done a random search on ebay for a guide price. Im after 20ft used. I am going to budget that very $5K for the delivery of the 3 containers.

I will send my concept to a structural engineer who can give me a quote for his calculations and ask the city for an estimate of the cost of permits and establishing utilities at the site. Without a true estimate I am not able to chose whether this route will offer the cheaper build.

Thank you Karen, you mention getting financial backing and Jon mentions finance. Since I have already secured the lot please can any of you give a ball park figure of this concept. My current estimate is about $20K since the lot is flat and I aim at project managing the build. I am keen to know if I am way of the mark as as I have a number of other lots that I would like to develop at the same time. Pam, I hope you don't mind asking this question on your thread. Thank you

Thanks for the tips Jon the city planning and zoning departments have been very helpful. My lot is very small hence the reason to extend upwards. Maximum height I can go is 75ft so I have stopped at 24ft. I also need at least 1 parking space for every 500ft. The key thing the building dept have told me is that my structure has to be fixed in order to be permitted. Im new to construction but I see better margins to be found here at the moment despite my lack of experience.

I dont think this requires alot of money to get started. I bought quite a few lots of land in October last year at a tax deed sale. Like Karen says having a home developed by an architect wont increase value. I bought this one lot for $5K and I used google sketchup to design my first container home or rather office as this is a light commercial area. My hope is to errect this at a cost of $15K to $20K after which I can lease it out or sell. I dont expect to make anything less than a 60% yield when it is done. However I have to say that I am very inexperienced at what I am doing as I have never built a property from scratch. I am keen on exploring subterranean home designs as well as alot of my lots are hillside.

Great questions @Joshua McGinnis I had an IT guy write a script that synced the website and all you needed to do was refresh the website to get the list of remaining items. Each parcel then took just took a single line on paper and shrunk the entire 400page book down to 50 or 60 pages. I was then able to sort the data based on any field e.g parcel no., price, parcels with lien. All mine are LA county distributed over about 4 cities.

I used google maps to identify my lots sadly most of the ones I chose and were really interested were gone by the day of the auction. I had to have internet connection on the day of the auction to have a vague idea of what items was left and whether to bid on it on a whim. There were so many lots there and people attending had such a varied purpose that most of the lots I bidded on did not have any other bidders. There were many unsold lots as well which were halved for the next day and it was interesting to see those go for far much more than the unsold price the day prior.

I have not researched too much about the cons of reused containers but one of the retailers has quoted about $250 to have it delivered from Long beach to compton. A place like compton has a ceiling and while there may be more durable building methods, keeping costs as low as possible will be my priority. So in the case of the image above which is meant for that lot. I paid $5K for the lot. So even if I spent $15K on permits and the containers. I will be sure of a healthy profit margin.

My commercial property is in Inglewood its been empty since I got it two years ago but my vision for it is on this website www.427comms.com basically to help small businesses with office spaces. Needs a bit of work first though.

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