All Forum Posts by: Lesley Resnick

The government has created a tax system to drive behavior.  It is in the collective good for people to own thier own homes.  Thus, the deductibility of mortgage interest.  Depreciation encourages business to replace their assets sooner.  It creates economic activity and frees up assets on the secondary market for goods that may not be available otherwise, i.e. an old truck that is purchased by a new business.  When an existing business purchases a new truck to replace the old one.

As far as the morality of paying or not paying, that is the vanilla / chocolate argument.  What I do believe strongly is that giving a bunch or drunk teenagers a credit card with a multi-trillion spend limit ends badly for everyone.

Under 5000 sq ft building is one parking spot.  I can't build any larger.  Between the amount of impervious surface and the pond / access to the pond. I am limited.  It would not matter what commercial use I build.

Looking at the market, I am somewhere just short of $1 a foot for contractor space.  The storage is similar.  It will cost a lot more to build electric and plumbing.    

Temporary structures may circumvent the requirements.  I have seen the conex boxes in lots around town.  This is an area for more review.

I like the idea that it is a business and not a passive activity.  It will offer a lot of tax advantages.

As it sits now I can build about 1900 sq feet.  My engineer calculated it.  My biggest limiting factor is the water management pond requirement.  Florida requires 12% to be drainage.  I can get 10 units, 2 of them will be short of the 10x20.  The 10x20's are going for 175 a month.  Fully rented I am in the 1750 a month range.  There will be no power or water service.  It will be drive up and there will be no gate.  I will use solar lights.  I expect I can build it for around 80-100k.  

Could you explain the flex or contractor building?  I am not sure how that building could be worth $3500 a month?

Could you tell me more about movable storage units?  I have considered buying a number of Conex boxes and renting them out.  It is in a neighborhood and it is zone incorrectly.  The city gets 6k and 3 months to fix the zoning.  So in the mean time, I am looking at my options for storage.      

Has anyone built a Small Self Storage.  I have a piece of land and It is 50x100 and zoned commercial.  I am considering building a small self storage.  Probably in the range of 2500-3000 sq ft.  I am not sure of the size mix.  Seems like 10x20 is the most popular.  I may build a mix since my optimization is an L shape building.

Is block better than metal?  There are a number of metal pre-fab companies out there.  If I do block, I would use my concrete guy.

Build to STR, interesting idea. How would you build differntly than a rental or retail sale?

Tiny houses have not really come to Jacksonville.  There are a few, but they are tied to city initives for senior housing.  

You need to look at the zoning carefully. There are limited locations that allow AIRBNB. If it is not a use by right, If you are on the river and not allowed to STR, your neigbors will turn you in.

The other concern is the army core of engineers.  They control building on waterfront, navigable rivers, ocean.

Flips are great, except you pay taxes on your earnings. I expect most people end up paying around 30% net towards taxes (not bracket). If you hold the property you will reduce your tax burden, bonus deprecation, mortgage expense. The net effect is that keeping a property, BRRRR or not, is more net profitable than flipping. Of course there will be exceptions and properties that do not make sense to hold, the cashflow will not justify it. As an added bonus I can say the property will appreciate in the future.

Sorry, I do not have a recommendation.  I would google it.  I think it may be a specialty item.  Not even sure if such a product exists.  If you do find it, please send the name along.

What is the future of the the other Ibuyers? If I were to bet, they are going to run out of money as well.  They have portrayed the Zillow failure as good for them.  I don't see the the Ibuyers' VC's continuing to pour money into a model that is not working.  Scaling fix and flip nationally is a cool idea.  They have same problems we all do.  Finding good deals, debt service labor material and so on.  Except on a national scale. 

Is there going to be a crash, YES.  When is anyones guess?  In the words of Jim Morrison, "no one gets out alive".  On a long enough time frame, all markets crash.  The markets' assent is unstainable it, will, could, maybe, absolutley, continue up or soften.  At this moment any forecast is a good as the next.  If someone asked you five years ago, where will you be today, there is no possibilty you had a reasonale answer.

ADU, ah! What a great idea. Jacksonville zoning does not allow it. The city has a huge landmass and there are still large tracks that have not been developed. Some of the more interesting properties are in the historic districts and anything goes as long as it old. This has led the city to allow a very conservative zoning structure to exist. I expect as the affordable housing crisis continues, it will change.

I tried Roofstock and they were a nightmare to deal with for an existing home.  They could not get out of their own way.  I don't know how they are doing now.  From the time I started working with them until I pulled my house they lost about a 1/3 of their listing in Jacksonville.  Some may have been sold, but a lot just disappeared from their site.

There are a number of other companies doing build to rent here, but they are mostly turnkey and keep the property management piece, which changes the numbers.