All Forum Posts by: Jacob Wyatt

Hi there BP community! 

I currently own an old house in West Seattle, WA on a LR2 zoned lot. I am considering the option to partner with a General Contractor, demolish the current house, and build 3 homes on the lot. It is a 4000sqft lot and could hold 3 $780k-$825k homes. I cannot finance a project like this by myself but am curious if anyone could lend a hand with connections or insight on what would be fair terms.

I owe $350k on my home and am in the process of applying for my HELOC that I am thinking I can get about $200k out (if it is needed). What I would find ideal is to partner with a contractor, use some of my funds and some of their funds (or their investor funds) to finance the build. I would like to walk away from the deal with my current mortgage paid off and owning one of the homes outright for myself. So structuring the deal like the sale of two of the houses would pay for my mortgage, real estate commissions, demolition and construction of the project, etc... and the rest would go straight to the partner. I estimate around $220-290k. I will also be completing my real estate schooling and expect to be the listing agent for the houses.

Has anyone heard of deals like this or find this reasonable/enticing for a partner? 

Thanks BP!

Hi there BP community,

I am hoping to find the best Seattle based Architecture connections. I am going to be building a home on the back portion of my lot in west Seattle. It seems like all the companies that I have called are just way too busy to take on new clients. Its a complex project on a small lot, so a professional with multifamily design experience in Seattle will be necessary. Thank you in advance for the referrals!!

@Jennifer Beadles Do you have any smaller builders you would recommend me giving a call? Id greatly appreciate any leads!

Hi there BP community,

Two part question here:

I am hoping some of your Seattle folk have some recommend worthy people in the industry. I will be building a 1600 sqft home on the back of my property in West Seattle. I am looking for your favorite new construction companies to work with in hopes to find someone to trust. 

Do any of you have experience doing a project like this and have your costs outlined? They did a project next-door where they bulldozed the small house, subdivided, and put up three separate homes. I found their costs online when looking up their permit information. Their estimated costs were 208k. Curious what from your experience I can expect to spend for a project like this. Just planning for a 3 story "darth vader" home with a footprint of about 550sqft and a rooftop deck. 

Thanks in advance BP community!

Hello BP community,

I just bought my first house that I will be house hacking. It is a SFH zoned LR2 in the Morgan Street Junction in West Seattle. It currently has a half unfinished basement and half crawlspace. My vision is to convert the downstairs to a nice basement apartment and I would greatly appreciate your help!

Getting going on my first project, it seems daunting. Especially with Seattle's extensive permitting process and never having done a project before. I want to keep everything legal and would prefer to contract out a good portion of the work and do a good amount of the work myself (I worked in construction from the age of 17-21) instead of hiring a general contractor, although my mind could be swayed because I do love the idea of having this project completed ASAP. A few questions about getting started... Please, pardon my ridiculous questions... I can't wait to learn a ton on this project:

1) What are my first step in getting started with this project (in terms of beginning the process to permit it/setting up construction)?

2) Do I need an architect to draw up the plans for my basement or will drawings I do myself suffice? 

3) Does anyone have connections or had a great experience with a concrete/mini excavation company that would be able to complete the downstairs by digging out the crawl space (about 450 sqft), chipping up the current 500 sqft slab, and pouring a new 950 sqft slab, in the greater Seattle area? I have considered doing the digging myself but just don't think it would be worth my time. Plus with all the beams under my home and posts to support those beams, a crew would be able to better complete this task, I am sure. 

4) Does anyone have connections with someone in the electrical industry? I will probably have my upstairs updated (its currently knob and tube) and then I will need the whole downstairs completed. 

5) Of course you never know until you see or begin the project but what do you think I will be paying to complete the basement or what have some of you paid for similar 950 sqft basement apartments? I can foresee hiring out all the concrete (the slab and also the stairwell going down into the apartment), the heating, the plumbing, the electrical, and definitely the mud and taping (possibly the hanging of the drywall as well)... and probably taking care of the rest myself. I have done some rough numbers and I can't really see it costing more than about 65k. That would make it an almost 3% investment and it would pay for over 90% of my mortgage on my 350k loan. 

I am sure I forgot details but anything you have to say from your experience would be appreciated to hear about. If you're a Seattle contractor, I would like to hear from you as well and maybe we can do business. Thanks everybody and I look forward to hearing your responses! 

@Jeff B. : So you would probably turn the basement unit of the duplex into a common site and try to bring in some income by rental storage space? I just don't see the numbers come close to working if it were just two living spaces unless the owner would take drastically less money. I guess as I have heard in some podcasts: offer what your numbers will let you and see what happens. 

@Seth Borman : This is Tacoma. 

@Seth Borman, @Jeff B. I just received an email back from the planning directors office in regard to this address. Here is what she replied back to me:

"We do not have any records of a duplex being located at the site. It does appear that there are two single-family units, which was allowed for sites with more than 10,000 sf in the R-2 zone until recently. Therefore the site would have non-conforming rights to have 2 single-family dwellings at the site.

A building permit was recently issued for a residential alteration at the site... xxxxx"

There are two separate structures on the site (one being a duplex and one being a SFH) as she mentioned but I am curious if it would it be impossible to legalized the downstairs unit now since the zoning has been tightened.

Hey BP!

I stumbled across a triplex in the Tacoma/Lakewood WA area with an asking price of 375k. The owner claims that rents for his units are 1200, 1200, and 1400 (a duplex 3/1 and a small 2/1 SFH). I noticed that closing has fallen through 3 times. I looked at the zoning map and the property is zoned SF, which I assumed was part of the reason for not closing, so I called the listing agent and he confirmed that suspicion. He told me that since it is zoned SF that only one of the units can be used for income qualification on loan. He also informed me that the upstairs unit is currently vacant since they were thinking an owner-occupant would buy the property and that the other two are rented out at 1200/mo with 1000 of that being payment and 200 of that being labor the tenants are doing. Both of the currently rented units are month to month, as well (which I know banks like to see 12 month leases if you want to use the rental income to qualify for the loan). It looks like a nice property with two of the units being newly remodeled but it obviously has its concerns.

What is your experience with buying a MF property on a SF lot? How can they get away with that, legally and with insurance on the house? 

The numbers seem to be good for a turn key in this area. Also, knowing I can probably talk them down significantly with it being listed for a couple months already, if things ever got that far.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi BP community! 

Recently, a curiosity for the Spokane Market has begun to intrigue me. Living in Seattle it is the closest large and affordable market to begin my investing career into. The city has a ton going for it and a good friend of mine whom grew up there has been an inspiration that the city is improving and would be a good investment.

I was curious as to what the BP community thought:

How is the Spokane Market? The properties seems to work well numbers wise in my calculations.

Is one type of market favorable to another (SFH vs duplex...etc)?

How are the quality of tenants in the area?

Would you recommend one part of Spokane over another to begin looking deeper into?

Any information is greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time!

Thanks everyone for the helpful and thoughtful responses! 

@Colleen F. : The size of the house is about 1000 sqft with an unfinished half basement (but has legal ceiling height) and half crawl space. Upstairs is two bedrooms and one bathroom. Street parking is always available but since two of the neighbors just put three units on their 4000 sqft lots, parking is more limited in the evenings. 

@JD Martin : I am certainly now leaning more towards keeping the parking space and readjusting the garden area and front yard situation to create a little more grass and space.

@Adrian Chu : I have a hard time finding how much to invest into this home because although I am sure that I will develop in the future, I do not know when that time will come (especially since it is my primary residence). My gut tells me we will be here for 5 years and rent it for 5-10 years before we develop. 

@Account Closed : I have never considered your idea and think it's brilliant. My garage is around 240 sqft. Do you have any ideas of what this would be worth monthly to "space renters" in Seattle?