All Forum Posts by: Charlie Anne

I'm under contract on a home. There's some active termites and a water leak in the water main in the front yard. I'm very worried these repairs will cost far more than expected, I am considering backing out of the deal.

What do you recommend as the best approach for these issues? I'm worried if they credit me some money towards closing the termite or water damage will be far more extensive than expected and I'm out thousands of dollars.

I'm looking for contractual advice or just overall strategy on how to protect myself.

The house is a fixer upper with a long list of repairs. Perhaps I can use some of the other repairs to inflate the credit amount, assuming they won't provide the full credit asked for. The other issue is that the closing costs are $5k and I think this warrants more than $5k off.

@Kevin Brenner @Karen Kalina do you have any contractor recommendations for Savannah? 

I’m adding a kitchen and renovating a bathroom.

On the exterior I need a new fence & some siding. 

There's a large 5 bedroom home I'm interested in buying in Savannah. I want to turn the upstairs into it's own unit to rent on AirBnB. Since it will be owner occupied I would be able to legally have a STR.

The upstairs has 4 bedrooms/1 bathroom. I’d like to convert the bedroom directly above the kitchen into a kitchen. The stairs to the 2nd floor go to the side of the house near the back entrance, so it would be really easy to add a wall so that when you enter through the back door you are in a small hallway that leads directly upstairs. 

I don’t think the conversion will be too costly given the layout. The room I want to convert to a kitchen shares a wall with the bathroom sink so there’s plumbing right where it’s needed. There’s already 2 HVAC units and 200 AMP electricity (house from 1900).

What's confusing me is do I need a special permit to make an attached dwelling unit? Or do I just need permits for adding a kitchen and a wall downstairs? The area is zoned for multi family, but I don't want to become a duplex. I would like to have the property remain as a SFH with an attached dwelling unit.

I see lots of people turning their basement into another unit, this seems very similar. I can’t find clear guidelines for Savannah online.

Has anyone done this before?

Thanks @Michael Haas!

How is the demand for rentals in Seattle right now?

Have you had to drop rates? Does it take longer to sign a lease at the moment?

Who owns rentals in Seattle? Has the demand slowed a lot since March?

How long is a unit vacant now vs pre-COVID?

@Kevin Trapani I’m in NJ but looking outside of Atlanta and Philly. 

@John Morgan totally! I just want to get in the game. For now I decided to wait for something with less work. Congrats on hitting 10 doors!! 

@Kevin McGuire I have thought it over and realized that maybe I should pool my cash on a larger purchase with no repairs neede so that even if it doesn’t appreciate too much at the end of 30 years I would own something worth much more and it’s less of a headache. 

@Mikael Winkler because I of the 20% down, 20k repair costs and then 7.5k closing.

Decided it was too steep & passed!