All Forum Posts by: Chris Pung

I am looking for input on a property:

The property:

0.17 acres of woods in the vicinity of Lead Hill, Arkansas.

This is landlocked property which was part of one of those land sales where a larger lot of woods was subdivided into a bunch of tiny lots and marketed to people as an investment.

My family owns this little lot, and we don’t know how to profit from it.

Any ideas?

Chris

I am looking for input on a property:

The property:

0.17 acres of woods in the vicinity of Lead Hill, Arkansas.

This is landlocked property which was part of one of those land sales where a larger lot of woods was subdivided into a bunch of tiny lots and marketed to people as an investment.

My family owns this little lot, and we don’t know how to profit from it.

Any ideas?

Chris

I heard about BP on numerous other podcasts. it seemed to be "THE" place to go. 

Hi,

I was just reading this thread as part of my research on the Philly market.

Among other things, I have been reading about taxes in Philly for real estate investors.

For non-resident owners (like those of us from NYC) of rental properties I have found the following:

1. Pennsylvania Income Tax (a simple 3.07% flat tax)

2. The BIRT (Business Income & Receipts Tax)

3. The NPT (Net Profits Tax)

4. The 4.1% real estate transfer tax

For Philly residents running rentals I have found that there are the following applicable taxes:

1. Penn. Income Tax

2. BIRT (unless you are owner-occupying a 1~4 family property)

3. NPT

4. The 4.1% real estate transfer tax

5. Philadelphia School Tax

Am I missing any?

Also I read that there is HB/SB 76 in the State legislature which will significantly overhaul property taxes, which almost passed not too long ago, and may have a better chance of being passed in this Republican dominated political environment.

Can anyone familiar with the area comment on these issues?

Thanks

Chris

PS - I am not a tax expert or giving advice

PSS - Thanks for running some meet-ups in NYC recently @Joe Scorese

Roy,

Thanks for sharing from your experience!

I have heard people talk about finding an an investing "edge", and I think trying to retrofit buildings to a passive house standard may be a good one.

What do you think about the idea of buying a house that needs to be renovated - perhaps gut renovated - and fixing it for rental to passive house standards (or as close to that as possible).

If the cost is equal or less than renovating a house to current code standards, then it would follow that renting that house would provide a better return on investment. You could rent to the market rate, but the utilities costs would be lower and the difference would be a source of profit - the investor's "edge". Maybe one could rent out the house as "all utilities included" and rent for more than market rate.

What are your thoughts?

Can a passive house/passivehaus gut renovation be done economically? Is it case by case?

Chris

Hi, 

I am also interested in this topic. You might want to look at the New York Passive House organization. There is a difference between the "Net Zero" and "Passive House" concept. Net zero is trying to completely eliminate energy payments or energy input. Passive house building standards are aiming a low but not zero energy costs. 

The passive house building standards are active in Northern Europe, and at a recent NYPH presentation I heard that in the past 5 years the entire new construction industry in Belgium has switched to the passive house standard. Apparently, the theoretical models showed that passive house standards would cost just a little more than normal building costs to get much better energy efficiency, BUT when it was actually put into practice it turns out that the passive house building codes cost LESS than the previous standards to build and are more energy efficient.  When it became clear that this was a win-win situation, market forces took over and nobody is looking back.

I hope that this example will be copied in the US. Financially it makes too much sense, but in a country which still refuses to adopt the metric system there is the potential for builders to ignore this opportunity.