All Forum Posts by: Eric Teran

@Whitney L. Cooper I to live in Washington DC and own two condos and a jungle house in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador. My wife as well as my parents are from there and we both have a lot of family living there. My wife’s cousin and sister manage the apartment locally and we have known the cleaning lady for over ten years. We mainly rent on Airbnb, word of mouth, and some Facebook travel postings. It definitely helps knowing the areas and having people that we can trust take care of the day to day.

In regards to financing as the other have mentioned no bank or lender in the US will give a loan to buy a foreign property. Their reasoning as I was told is that they do not have the resources to be owners of a foreign property. Instead we took out personal loans and used our credit cards. This can be dangerous. If you try a local bank in a foreign country they may not loan it to you if you can’t prove any employment or credit history in that country. Additionally down payments and interest rates may be high.

Good luck.

@Justin Lester there are a lot of questions that need to be asked.

How big is the cellar? Do you have to drop the slab to get to a 7’-0” clearance? How deep are the footings? Is this going to be converted to a rental as an accessory unit or into a two dwelling flat (the zone will determine which one you can do)? Is it still going to remain a single family and you want to add some rooms? Do the rooms need egress? Where in DC is this? I can go on but you get the point.

Depending what you do you may be able to do it per @Russell Brazil estimates but you will need to be your own Contractor or already have a crew. For my clients with similar projects that hire contractors I see estimates between $75k to $175k. Right now builders have not slowed down and materials are in short supply driving up costs.

Give us more information about the project and we can have a better idea on costs.

@David Edwards good to see this project is still moving forward. My concern is that the construction cost is going to go up if you have to remobilized a construction crew every few months. For example, with modular you need a crane. A crane may cost $10k a day at the site. If the 12 units are built at once the job will be done in three days. If they are divided the crane will have to be there for more days and make more trips to and from the site. The same goes for paving, utilities, and so forth.

Why not build the 12 units in 5 months and start collecting rent on all the units sooner? Of course, this is a lot more money upfront but at least there is less stress of trying to refinance numerous times and quickly. I would make sure one bank provides all the refinancing loans and have it in writing.

Keep us posted.

@Joe Splitrock whatever you do do not get a color like red or something that cannot wash with everything else. We once bought red towels because it looked great with the decoration but we soon realized we had to wash it separate if there were other colors or white. A few times we had to do one wash for only one towel. Not very efficient. Live and learn.

I agree with the three sets. For our basement unit we only have two but that is because we do the laundry right away as we live above so there is always a spare in case of an emergency.

@Mary Arobaga-Reardon I have a few questions for you. When you say double lot do you mean it is big enough to divide into two legal lots? What zone is it in? If you divide it into two lots is the existing home fall within the setbacks? Will the new lot be shaped so that a house can be built within the setbacks? Depending the zone the existing lot may allow for more than one residence. Is that a scenario you would consider?

I’ve looked at this for various clients in DC but none of them have pulled the trigger yet. The one I did in Maryland was a long process.

@Russell Brazil I’m sure you know that there are different types of surveys. The ones you are talking about are basically just the house located on the lot. Which is what this thread seems to be about. I couldn’t imagine it being that expensive unless there are no property corners or previous surveys. Then the deed has to be referenced and the property corner have to be set which will drive up the cost. That is why DC is in the low end for house location surveys. Everyone has done one. However, I have had surveys done in DC that have gone up to $5,000. It depends on what information you need. DC loves their trees and they all have to be surveyed. If the lot is on a hillside and the topography is needed it costs more. An ALTA survey in DMV for a house can be up to $8k but that rarely needs to happen.

Going back to the thread, get a house location survey. Nothing more or nothing less. It will show the property boundaries and where the house is located within it. This will also help if you ever decide to do an addition and there are setbacks.

@Michael B. it depends how big the gut job is and what the finishes are to be under $150k. Is it a 1,500 SF rowhouse or 3,000 SF single-family home? I know two contractors that work in Montgomery and Howard counties. However, I don't think they will fall within that price point as most of their work is in DC. If you are interested send me a PM and I can give you their contact information. 

@Jon K. A lot of residential zones allow church buildings but are still zoned for SFH. Hopefully, this is the case. To change a lot to another zone is not that easy. Even if it is going back to what it used to be.

If it has to be rezoned ask the seller that the closing is determined on the city approving the zoning. Estimate how long that process will take and add it to the closing documents. It will probably be a few months. This will give you an out of the contract if the rezoning is not approved.

Good luck.

@Daijamonet Cook the easiest thing to do is make sure the building is properly sealed. This is done by installing the correct insulation and at least double pane windows. Insulation is key to have an efficient building. Then the proper mechanical unit can be installed, energy efficient lighting, and EPA watersense plumbing fixture. You can then look at using sustainable and local materials.

@Kaustubh Johri I agree with @Samuel Pavlovcik and the only thing I would add is to find out why it is not closed. It maybe that it only needs a final inspection or perhaps an outlet was not GFI and needs to be updated. There are a million reason so find out what is preventing it from being closed.

If it is something simple just take care of it as it may not be worth the hassle to bring in the previous owner. If there are numerous items that can be life threatening or costly; for example, the rough in and insulation was not inspected before close in then I would get a hold of the previous owner and tell them they sold a house that was not allowed to be occupied.

Good luck.