All Forum Posts by: Kyle McVay

 I dm'd you! Thanks so much for your advice.

Okay, this is a home built in 1937, although this isn't the original kitchen it's definitely not what I would consider updated. I'm curious to know what y'all would do and why. This home is a LTR  in a neighborhood that is gentrifying. There are some gorgeous old homes in this neighborhood. In fact, we are thinking about picking up our second home in this neighborhood because of all the work we see going on it. This is a C neighborhood moving toward a B neighborhood. I live in a College town and it's becoming more expensive. Many people are moving to this town so they can get into BCS but not pay as much for housing. I'm hoping  to attract more B type renters.

Some issues I have with the kitchen:

1. There is no dishwasher. (I know this seems like a small kitchen but this kitchen could easily be expanded to a U shaped kitchen. Although I'd prefer to leave it as J) I'm thinking that we should have a dishwasher. (This is going to be a 3-2)

2. I'm thinking we need to rip the cabinets out and start over. It's not a lot of cabinets. But maybe we shouldn't take the cabinets out and we should just clean it up (I hear hydrochloric acid does wonders ;) ) Should I just get the stock cabinets from Lowes or do we upgrade to IKEA+ 

3. (Assuming we are ripping the kitchen out) The countertops... We are considering either laminate or something like granite? I'm wondering what folks do for counter tops. 

4. Microwave is this a must or do folks provide it themselves. I feel like in a small kitchen it would take up a lot of space. 

If you can please tell me why you'd do what you do, too. 

Thank you!

Kyle

We closed on our first property today! We've got contractors locked in and our rehab will start on the 12th. Here we go...

We closed on our first property today! We've got contractors locked in and our rehab will start on the 12th. Here we go...

Blessings,

Kyle

Quote from @Randall Alan:

Quote from @Kyle McVay:

So we are buying (6/5 close) our first rental and it's needing a lot of rehab before we rent it. We're trying to find things NOT to fix. We have to level the house and we are turning a 2-1 into a 3-2 . The house already has new lights, brand new roof, A/C & Water heater so these big expenses were done by the previous owner who originally wanted to flip the house. Every window in the house looks pretty close to original (house c. 1937) and some of the glass is broken.  All windows are single pane. 

My husband and I are wondering, should we:

*just  repair windows & sills and fix broken glass 

*Or change out all of the windows 

What do y'all think? 

 Definitely definitely definitely, just fix the windows! We made the mistake of changing out the windows in a 1925 house that we were rehabbing. We thought we could slide under the radar, but ultimately had to pull a permit and that resulted in us having to bring the entire window structure up to 2023 code (for 25 windows!!). This required installing metal braces at the bottom of the windows and also reframing the windows completely differently than they were done way back in the day. Long story short it cost us an extra thousand dollars per window to replace the windows… That is beyond the cost of the window itself. It required hiring an engineer, a general contractor, and a very experienced framer. Had we bought custom windows that were the exact same size as the original windows, we would not have had to pull the permit. But as soon as you modify the size of the window by more than 5%, you are in for one hell of a ride in my state! 

Be very careful what you jump into…It can get very costly very quickly. 

All the best

Randy

 Okay that's terrifying. We are in a small town with very few building codes, and no permits. But still... 

So we are buying (6/5 close) our first rental and it's needing a lot of rehab before we rent it. We're trying to find things NOT to fix. We have to level the house and we are turning a 2-1 into a 3-2 . The house already has new lights, brand new roof, A/C & Water heater so these big expenses were done by the previous owner who originally wanted to flip the house. Every window in the house looks pretty close to original (house c. 1937) and some of the glass is broken.  All windows are single pane. 

My husband and I are wondering, should we:

*just  repair windows & sills and fix broken glass 

*Or change out all of the windows 

What do y'all think? 

We are in the process of buying our first rental property. The property only has 1 bathroom.  The Bathroom has what I would consider a large tiled shower area. In that area is also (randomly) a tub spigot.  We could rip out some of the tile and put in a tub or we can just put up glass and just have a shower. I think just putting up a glass wall might be cheaper but we are looking at the long game too. Also, I mean technically, would the home only have 2/3's of a bathroom if we go to list it in the future?  Which do you think would make the house more marketable?

So should we put in a tub or should we make it a shower only? 

Thanks,

Kyle Su

Okay, while we were viewing a SFH my husband suddenly realized it was actually a duplex that had been converted into a SFH. It was originally a 1 bd/1 ba duplex that was converted into a SFH around 2014. The kitchen is still intact and to turn it back into a duplex all we need to do is provide a barrier for a doorway, (so make it into a closet or throw up some drywall etc... ) and add kitchen cabinets, counter, sink, appliances etc.. After that there is additional rehab that is needed because it's not in great condition. We'd have to put at least $25K into it (maybe more we haven't had an inspection yet). This would increase the value of the property by between 27%-33% (according to our Realtor) so at first it seemed like a no-brainer and a big win for our first property.

I've even got a contractor that will be available around the closing time for some of the bigger projects like moving the door, putting in windows...

But when I ran the rental numbers they aren't great. The rent is low in this area. This house is on the edge of a neighborhood that is gentrifying, 2 of the 6 houses on this street are nice. The view from the front yard is back of run down duplexes. I'm concerned if we buy the house and we try to flip it that it won't sell because the price tag will be too much for the rent it collects. If we try to buy and hold it only cashflows $55 with is COC Return of 1.4% (well below the 8%).

We were trying to negotiate the contract. But now Im wondering if we should walk. What do you all think?