All Forum Posts by: Daniel Amsalem

My wife and I use Avail to find, screen, and manage applicants. It distributed our listing to a bunch of places with the exception of Zillow. So she manually placed our listing there.

We've listed in FurnishedFinder with no luck. We actually use Airbnb for our 2 furnished MTR units with great success.

@William HooFatt your attorney sounds like a legend. Mind PMing me his info? I'd love to have someone like that handy since we own in City of Alexandria.

This is a duplicate post. I'm not sure how to delete it

A few updates that didn't fit into the above post:

The attorney who handled our closing offered to assist the sellers pro-bono in an effort to recover some of the equity. The husband accepted this lien from Veterans Affairs while being ill-equipped to do so due to his severe PTSD. Skipping ahead many months, I'm happy to report that half of the equity wiped out by the lien was recovered which made a big difference for these folks who were looking to retire.

We purchased the house when my wife was 8 months pregnant. We completed the work 2 weeks before our baby was born so we took a 4 week hiatus to rest and have the baby.

Then I dove into the design, planning, and permitting for the basement.

I visited the local Permit office in Alexandria and basically said, "Hi, I'm a new homeowner and I'm an idiot when it comes to permitting. I want to finish my basement, who can I talk to that will help me through this?"

I'm really fortunate to have been introduced to Henry in the permitting center. He's not only educated me with over 30 emails where he reviewed my drawings and coached me along, but he also connected me with the departments I needed to get my permits. Long story short, I spent about 3 months figuring out how to make half-decent drawings and refining and adjusting them to code.

We started work on the basement at the end of May with Minh and by the middle of September the basement was transformed into a luxurious 2/1.

That still left a lot of landscaping work, but my wife and I tackled that over the next 3-4 weeks in addition to the furnishing.

We're now live on Airbnb, where you can see the full transformation: http://airbnb.com/h/reel-retreat

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Alexandria.

Purchase price: $520,000
Cash invested: $225,000

Built in 1960, our semi-detached home was a 3/1.5 with 988sqft. Cap-ex was needed for:
* Original 1960s kitchen, appliances out of order
* Original 1960s Pepto Bismol colored tiles in the bathroom
* Tobacco and marijuana stains/odor in every room
* Stained carpet covering damaged hardwood
* Broken side door from forced entry by police
* Zero recessed lighting with 3 layers of blinds on every window
* Lots of trash in the basement both on the floor and mounted to the joists overhead

Check out the Zillow listing at: https://www.zillow.com/homes/119-Jasper-Pl-Alexandria,-VA-22...

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

The City of Alexandria is bound by the Potomac, Arlington, and Fairfax county. It has zero room to grow outward but has proximity to the Pentagon and DC. This area is ripe for gentrification.

* 1.5 miles away from the new billion dollar Inova Landmark project which will complete in 2028
* The Duke Street corridor from Landmark to the King Street Metro Station has the highest ridership in the City and will be under construction in 2026

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Found on the MLS with zero interior pictures and listed AS-IS.

* Asking price was $525K, we lowballed at $460K.
* They dropped to $520K, we countered with $465K.
* Our agents met and we learned that the lowest they'd go was $510 because of a HELOC
* We offered $520K with $10K seller credit to be used for closing costs. Initially they balked, but eventually they relented
* We kept our inspection contingency to void (not negotiate), and included a financing contingency

How did you finance this deal?

* We purchased with conventional financing using 5% down.
* We financed all rehab using 0% credit cards.

How did you add value to the deal?

Completely renovated main level:
* Demoed and redid kitchen with new appliances
* Refinished floors and reglazed bathroom
* Replaced the roof

Complete demoed and finished the basement and landscaping
* Replaced half bath with full and added 2 bedrooms
* Replaced entire plumbing including sewer line
* Added second washer dryer
* installed stamped concrete patio and walkway plus fence
* All new landscaping

What was the outcome?

* On Airbnb as an MTR. Rents are $3K but we're aiming for $4.5K/month
* Went from a 3/1 to a gorgeous 5/2 and from 988 sqft to 1,700 sqft
* Spent $225K, with $150K on the basement and exterior, with the rest used for upstairs, furnishing and landscaping. Used 0% cards and found private money to pay most of the cards.
* Aiming to refinance with a rate-term dropping down to about $3,500/mo, so we could live for free. We wanted to do a cash-out didn't force enough appreciation.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

- Always pay for title insurance! -
On the day of closing, our agent mentioned that the sellers tried to back out. Apparently the seller's title search didn't reveal a lien (ours did) which wiped out more than 80% of their remaining equity.

- Expect rehab costs to exceed initial estimates (maybe double)! -
Initial basement costs were projected at $60K, final costs were $125K. This was due to asbestos abatement, sewer line replacement, scope creep, and poor planning.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Our GC A&M is second to none and the subs they hire are a pleasure to work with. You can really judge a person by who they surround themself with and their team were all great.

Duplicate post, please help me delete this

Great questions Timothy. I was in a similar position a few years ago, but fortunately got married and our combined incomes helped us qualify for a larger house hack.

We're on our second one in NOVA, Alexandria to be exact, and instead of rent by the room, we are renting out our walkout basement on Airbnb to monthly guests.

That said, we have a number of friends doing well with rent by the room across NOVA, though they're purchasing homes with 5+ rooms or finding homes that can be renovated to include that setup.

I'd recommend attending meetups such as the one I cohost, NOVA REI or Cashflow Breakfast Club or any of the others to meet those who are house hacking. It's a great strategy but I agree with @Jack Seiden, having roommates at 30 isn't ideal. As you discover opportunities, continue looking for the longer play!

Hey @David Cherkowsky my wife and I house-hacked just outside Alexandria (in the Fairfax County side) and now are in City of Alexandria in the West End.

We went the walkout basement route but have friends who did rent by the room (they're past clients of @Russell Brazil). 

I certainly believe you'd find many applicants in Old Town, but prices were a bit prohibitive for us. I agree with @Chris Seveney that Del Ray would be an excellent place to do this. Ideally, closer to the main strip such as some restaurants on Commonwealth or especially on Mount Vernon.

We are doing the mid-term rental route on Airbnb. It worked well on our first place, we just took our listing live today for the second. Here's hoping it crushes!

We had a snafu last week where our Facebook post mistakenly showed the event was happening last Wednesday!

Well, here we are having our event this evening if you can make it.

I've got some fun updates on our basement reno and here's a hint: we're finally able to take a breath!

Meg and I hope to see the regulars and a few new folks there!

Below are some pics from the last meetup

We were able to share a few updates with folks including the fact that we were just about done with the rehab.

Well, here's the latest:

We got final approval from the county and closed our permits! Boy that was such a good day.

Since then, we've been going hard on the landscaping and furnishings as we prep our basement for both the open house (for NOVA REI members) and then taking the listing live on Airbnb.

We've got a few more loose ends but feeling relatively good about things.

If you can make it to this October meetup, I hope to share how our first bookings went 🤞