All Forum Posts by: Jarod Hall

Howdy Nick

I would start by reading the applicable municipalities zoning code and doing some measuring of the site. If there is some absurd parking, frontage per unit, or setback requirement for multi-family then you can probably stop there. Also start game planning your exits, if you want to subdivide and sell, lots of cities have minimum development sizes. There are quite a few cities that allow multifamily, but the way they have zoning codes written you have to be doing a pretty big project to comply.

After that if you haven't done ground up development before, the first place you should start is trying to find a local partner that you can bring in. There are a bunch of decision that you will need to be making that have huge effects on the profitability of the venture. 50% of some profit is better than 100% of a loss because of inexperience. And protecting the profitability of the project is solely the job of the developer, attorneys, architects (of which I am one), and civil engineers have other expertise and incentives.

Otherwise, in most of the states where I have worked start with either a civil engineer or an architect. In some east coast states you will also be bringing in a land use attorney pretty early. But the attorney won't have the ability to but the interpretation of the code onto the real life scenario like a design professional will.

Hope that helps, good luck with the project.

Howdy @Greg Wa

I have a small architect practice and do a little bit of development on the side. Right now there are four of us, but we all work remotely from both coasts and I am in Utah. The client interaction we have found has to be face to face, at least for the first couple of projects. Going to local REIAs has been one place I have connected with folks doing small developments or really extensive flips. Also talking to contractors is another primary source for smaller projects. Good luck.

@Aaron Schump Yeah I am super open about everything. So my firm did get a fee. But the fee was deferred until the project sold. So in the final payment stack the architecture fee, contractor fee, and seller real estate commissions (one for each of the three partners in the project) were just above the profit split to get paid out. So it acted like equity, but also acted like the architect was behaving like an architect (my liability insurance wanted there to be a normal arch fee and a owner architect contract)

So for us repayment it went like this

1st primary construction loan. We used hard money.

2nd the cash the partners had brought into the deal. Each of us had different amounts

3rd professional fees of each of the three partners

4th threeway profit split.

Does that answer everything. Let me know what else you have questions on.

@Aaron Schump yeah the guadalupe condos was my first and now I am the owner on the axioms townhomes that is still working its way through the planning process.

@Aaron Schump I am kinda in the same spot. I am an Architect in Utah that also does development work. Most of my income still comes from my work as an Architect, but do a development project every year or so as I find the right property to do something cool on. One of the hardest things about doing the first development process is dialing back the amount of cool you have in your brain. I would recommend having some sort of partner that is looking at the process from a different background for your first ground up project.

Howdy. I am an architect that does quite a bit of three story self storage across the nation. I highly recommend you find an architect that has experience in this exact type of construction. It is super different than typical construction and I have seen architects that cause a bunch of extra headaches (and cost) because they don't know what they are doing. I am pretty sure that most architects that specialize in self storage will get a license in a new state for a project. Rabco is another pretty major metal building supplier that works on the east coast that might be a good group to talk with. Send me a PM if you have any other questions.

If it is truly a legal duplex then it is mostly just a lawyer and a licensed surveyor. From my experience with SLC code, if apartments are allowed than condos are allowed. Double check at the planning desk at SLC to make sure. I haven't done an existing building conversion, but as far as the building code is concerned apartments and condos are built to the same standard. So unless there are currently code infractions you shouldn't have to do additional work. On the condo projects I have worked on the utilities are separated just like an apartment, i.e. gas and electric to each unit and everything else on a combined meter.

Here is a basic rundown of the process. The Surveyor would measure the property and draw the condo plat (basically the new property boundaries). Then the lawyer would take the plat and write the articles of organization, the declaration of condo, and the bylaws for the homeowners entity. All of that along with the proper city application forms get turned into the city. The city process to make this approval is going to be long. Probably at least 2 months. Because the property boundaries are changing there will need to be a 30 day public comment period. After all of that (assuming there are not legitimate reasons you can't do the condo plat) it is a couple of week process to get all of the city department signatures. Then it is off to the county and the state to have the plat recorded and get the HOA entity set up. All of that said it is probably going to be close to 10k+ and 3-4 months minimum to do the condo conversion.

Like others have said talk to the local jurisdiction. My experience in Utah is that 60-90 day to get the new plat finalized is optimistic. I have seen it done that fast, but I have also seen it take 6-8 months depending on a hundred factors that are out of your control.

@Drew Clements that is a pretty exciting opportunity. I am an architect and investor in salt lake and I can help you get started on at least knowing what determining the highest and best use so that you have a little context when you make first contact. I will send you a private message.

@Kinley Puzey If you have time in the next couple weeks, and you are interested, you can make the trek down to SLC and I will show you the 4 plex I am developing. It should be finished mid next month. We can also review the proforma on it a little bit if you want. 

I looked at starting small, but decided this was a better way to go. Fix and flips you can make money on, but my "architect self" kept getting in the way and I always wanted to spent more on rehab than I thought I could recoup, so I avoided those. Small spec houses are REALLY tough to make money on in UT, unless you have some great in with property. All of the big builders have such a formula they will just crush you on price. And at least from the evidence I have seen, utah buyers treat houses like a commodity, good design doesn't help the price much. So the 4 plex is the smallest thing that I felt I could do and still be comfortable with the risk.

Shoot me a DM if you want to find a time to walk through the 4-plex.