All Forum Posts by: Claire D.

Situation: I’m closing soon on my first house hack. The house I’ll occupy is empty but there are tenants on a month to month lease in the additional unit. The seller tells me they stopped paying rent, so I plan to not renew their month to month lease (with proper notice) once we close. Do I need an estoppel certificate since the lease is only month to month and I won’t continue it? I’m in Florida if that makes a difference. Thanks for the advice!

Thanks all for the input! Seller is actually going to repair the foundation, so I'm feeling some relief now :) 

Hi BP Community!

I am under contract on my first property to house hack in Saint Petersburg FL. It's 3/2 house with a detached 1/1 unit. I'm looking for advice on how others would handle a few things that came up on the inspection. My primary concerns are the areas the inspector noted should be checked out by a licensed structural contractor, detailed below. 

1. Stair step cracks in the ceiling in one bedroom in the main house and another crack in the kitchen ceiling 

2. Cracked floor tiles in the 1/1 unit's bathroom - noted that it may be due to sinking of floor 

3. Uneven stone supports under 1/1 unit

If this were you, are these issues deal breakers? Would you have a structural engineer / contractor check this out during the inspection period? If so, anyone in the area have a recommendation on who to call to check this out?

I'm not sure if these are major concerns or if I am just overreacting so want feedback from more experienced folks! 

@Zach Kidd Exactly the information I was looking for! Thank you!! 

Hi BP community. I'm currently seeking a property to house hack in St Pete and one thing that is unclear to me is how to verify if a property that has an existing mother in law / ADU is legal and up to code. I ran into one situation where the seller told us up front the work was not permitted to convert their mother in law unit so now I am wary of this.

How do you go about verifying if an ADU/ mother in law/ garage apartment etc is legal and up to code before offering? Tried reading through the codes site but it was pretty dense so hoping someone can break it down for me in a more digestible way. Thanks for the advice!

I have kept my eye on the small multifamily market in my area and have found that a handful of the properties listed as MFH's are actually zoned for SFH, such as a duplex-style house with shared utilities, or houses with a mother in law suite. As someone looking to house-hack for now and fully rent out the property in the future - I am considering both AirBNBing or traditional rental - what exactly are the major cons of these properties? The first cons that come to mind are:

- It would be financed as a SFH, not multi - I assume I can't use any of the potential rental income towards my loan qualification ?

- Shared utilities between units would need to be factored into rent, if applicable 

- Code violation fees (?) if someone goes out of their way to report you, or if major work is needed and the city "notices" 

Ultimately I am trying to understand how people that own these properties get away with renting them out, and what risks they face to do so. It seems to be a big "don't ask, don't tell" situation from the research I have done. Any additional insight is appreciated! 

@Amy Hua Hi Amy, I am in a similar boat as you - currently in the education phase and hoping to flip a house in the next year or so.

For funding, I plan to use a hard money lender. I do not have enough of my own capital to meet the HML requirements, so I plan on using private money from friend or family to make up for the difference that the HML will not provide, and in return offer the private lender 50% of the profit. Although this is not the most lucrative option for myself, my goal is to just get experience and learn the process in my first couple flips.

As far as your last question goes on "are there any homes to absolutely not go for".... The way I plan to approach it at the beginning is to only focus on homes that need advanced cosmetic repairs. I am planning on avoiding anything with serious foundation repairs, sinkholes ( Florida problems..), or anything of the sort. Those kind of major/structural repairs seem to be hard to estimate for a newbie and can eat into repair budget and potentially cause you to ultimately lose money. Leave the complicated stuff to the pros...

 Just my two cents as a fellow newbie. Best of luck!

Hi BP,

I am seeking any resources (books, websites, software, etc) to help educate myself on home design and renovations - particularly those focusing on the exterior of homes.

I am a complete newbie  so just looking to get familiar with the lingo and general concepts to help get some ideas on adding curb appeal in future flips

Thanks in advance!

@Kuba F. I recently picked up The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs and actually went to a bookstore last weekend to look for an inspection book, to no avail (guess I'll order online!).

Thank you for that checklist! I was actually just on your site the other day.

My fear is getting properties under contract and not following through with closing because my initial rehab estimates were not accurate. Don't want to make a habit of this and get a bad reputation with agents or anything like that. But I guess I just have to jump into the process and learn as I go. Thanks for the advice!

@Sean Carroll I thought the idea was that they help put together the SOW (I could certainly try, but without experience I'm certain I would overlook some things) in order to get to the rehab estimate.

When you hired the contractor for the estimate, how accurate was the estimate once you got legitmate bids?