All Forum Posts by: Darlena Jones

I hate when people tell me "it depends" but it was does depend.  Are you breaking ground in summer where you won't have any issues getting concrete in or working around spring rains?  Or are you breaking ground in the winter where you have to wait for a time where temps are above 32F

In general, we build a ~3000 square foot 4/3/3 in 6-8 months once we break ground but it can take 2-3 months of preliminary work before we can even break ground.  We have to get plans drawn up (we do our own plans), funder lined up (we use a regional bank), get the appraisal done on the house plans, buy the lot/close on the loan (takes 3-4 weeks to close on a lot/loan), then get a concrete company ready before you can actually break ground.

We pay around 5% interest on our construction loans.

Yes, that is too general of a question to ask.  But, overall, the cost will be dependent on the size of the house.  Most things on a house are scaled to the square footage (e.g., flooring, roof, dry wall, etc.)  

So, on new construction, the profit margin is highly dependent on the size/cost of the home.  If you're building a small house (like 1200 sq ft, 3/2/2), a builder might realize $5-$10k in profit but you can build a lot of them in a year.  

If the home is larger (3000 sq ft, 4/3/3, high end finishes), then a builder can make $40k or more but you can't build as many of these in a year. 

When the cost to fix is more than the cost to scrape away/build new.

I would tell them that I can't get financing if the monthly gross rent to price ratio is greater than 0.012.  So, if they collect $39600/year or $3300 per month, then the max I could pay would be $275,000.  Just business.  No emotions.

We have a peg board in our office closet with keys to all of our deadbolts.  Our deadbolts are numbered 1-N.  When a tenant moves out, we change out the deadbolts to another number.  All of us have master keys so that we don't have to carry a key with us for each unit.

Well, it looks like you already asked and got your answer back, loudly, in the form of "ah, thanks but no thanks."  

You best hope is that she leaves after her lease or will sign a new lease where it is clearly stated that either tenant pays all of the bills or you will be billing them for their usage.

And, each are responsible for the property taxes for their parcel.  Parcel 2 doesn't have to pay any fees to Parcel 1 for crossing their property.  Unfortunately, Parcel 1 gets a little screwed in this scenario.  But that's life.

No.  Let's say the road goes down the property line of Parcel 1 to get to Parcel 2.  You can encumber Parcel 1 to allow the road to exist and for people to use that road to get to Parcel 2.

Parcel 2 would be responsible for their driveway unless Parcel 1 uses part of that driveway for their home.  In that case, they would share expenses of the part of the driveway that is used by both and Parcel 2 pays full expenses/upkeep for the part of the driveway that only they use.

All of this would be recoreded on the deeds to both parcels.

So, if you can scrounge the cash up to pay cash for the property then you should be able to find a portfolio lender to lend at 80-85% LTV if the property has a solid rental history. So, if you can buy at well below appraised then refinance, you might walk away with all of your cash back.