All Forum Posts by: Mariel Painter-Chapman

@Cody Culberson

I think a little curb appeal would go a long way! Add some plants and some contrast to the exterior. It's the first two pictures in the listing so it doesn't make a great first impression- very beige and blah. However the interior looks good! 

I also agree that staging would help. I'm not a huge fan of virtual staging personally, I prefer actual physical staging. 

Hi everyone, 

I'm currently under contract on a house that we intend to flip in the greater Pittsburgh area. The backyard has a large tree about 15 ft from the (below grade) garage. The back wall of the garage (near the tree) is cracked and requires 3 wall plate anchors. The exterior side wall of the garage is bowing and requires 9 kevlar straps. There does not appear to be any issues with water except for the grading around the tree. We plan on removing the tree, fixing the grading, and completing the necessary repairs with a reputable company with either a 50 year or lifetime transferable warranty. My question is, will these repairs scare away buyers and negatively affect the ARV?

Thanks

Hi all,

Reaching out to see if anyone had any insight or experience with anything similar. Haven't had much luck or direction yet, and I'm sorry the post is so long! Wondering if this certificate of occupancy thing is something worth pursuing or if we should just let it go and chalk it up to a learning experience. FYI this is our first house so we are learning a lot to say the least! 

Last November my husband and I bought a triplex in the city of Pittsburgh as a house-hack with an owner occupied conventional loan. We found it on the MLS and had a real estate agent. Every single one of our closing docs says triplex (eg appraisal, etc). The seller disclosures don't say anything about the occupancy. It only had one water heater, one electric panel, etc when we bought it as many small multifamily places do in this area. After closing we started some renovations and hired an electrician to separate the electrical for each unit. When the electrician went to pull permits from the city, he informed us that the occupancy permit is for a two family rather than three. We ended up having to separate the electrical into the common areas, 1st floor, and 2nd +3rd floor on one panel.

The zoning on our street is only zoned for single family (unless there's an occupancy permit stating otherwise), so we cannot change it into a triplex that way. At first I reached out to the city to see if we could have our property grandfathered in as a "legal nonconforming" triplex, but the city came back and said we would have to prove it was being used as a three family dwelling since prior to 1957. The house was built in 1925, and the two-family occupancy permit is from 2004. So unfortunately doing that is basically impossible. 

I reached out to the closing company to receive the documents that came back from the title search. In them includes the permit of occupancy, clearly stating two family dwelling. The closing company told me that they hire out the title search, but aren't they supposed to look at the documents and make sure everything lines up? We would have wanted to negotiate the price down if they had alerted us of this during the closing process but they did not. 

We bought it as a house hack, and are currently living on the first floor, renting out 3rd floor, and plan on renting the 2nd floor as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but because we live there this is allowed because it's technically like renting out bedrooms in your house, right? If we rent out the 2nd and third floor we would live there for free and after all expenses make about $50/mo. However, if we move out I'm assuming we would legally HAVE to rent it out as a duplex, which would mean renting the 2nd and 3rd floors as one unit, and it would NOT cash flow that way. We would probably be about - $200 a month if we did that. We want to try to start getting our next property because it's coming up on a year that we have lived there, but do we even have that option? I don't want to move out and do another house hack at 5% down if we are going to be negative on cashflow on our current place. However, we don't have a ton of cash to be able to afford a 20% down payment on our next house. Do we have any options here? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! A lot of good points, and a wide variety of opinions. Looking at the comps, only two have cook tops in the islands, and most have the microwave above the stove combo. So right now were leaning towards #1 because it's the most affordable and keeps the natural light, but with a microwave above the stove. In the other renderings we were going to put the microwave in the island (although that's not my favorite either because I think it's too low). The island cooktop with and without the range hood seems too polarizing, either people love it or they hate it.

@Austin G. the program I used is Live Home 3D Pro, I like it because it's user-friendly and affordable. It's not as exact or professional as other programs, but it does the job for us!

@Lynnette E. I prefer #3 as well, but is it worth the extra $2k to have a down draft on a flip?

Thanks everyone! Okay so I've created a 4th option, which would be to have a ceiling mounted range hood. It'd be about $2k cheaper than the down draft, and still get to keep the window :O I personally wouldn't like that for my own home because it takes away from the sight lines, but I have to remember that I won't be living there, and it is cheaper. 

And @Lisa Toner, there's 5' between them so yes you'd be able to have both open

Hi BP! Need some help from the community about deciding on a kitchen layout for a flip. This is our first flip, it's outside of Pittsburgh, PA, and ARV is about $375k.

We are debating between these three designs, keep in mind the kitchen window on the back wall is existing. #1 is the cheapest option, but my concern is it will look weird with the stove off center and be too cramped in that corner. #2 Is about $1.5k more expensive, and we would be losing the window in order to center the stove. As it stands there is a moderate amount of natural light in the space, not a ton but it's also not a cave. #3 would be about $2.5k more expensive with a down-draft range but we get to keep the natural light from the window. The last pic is another rendering of option #1. Let me know what you think and thanks in advance!

Hi! Just wanted to add another voice from the clientele perspective. My fiance and I are both travel nurses and have been traveling the past two years- we've been in Philadelphia, Charleston WV, Reno NV, Los Angeles, and Santa Rosa CA. I'm not sure how it would be renting to single travelers by the room, personally we always get a "whole place" 1 bedroom or studio, using either FurnishedFinder or Airbnb. Assignments are typically 13 weeks, but a lot of times nurses extend for up to a year, but with Covid there are a lot more short term "crisis" contracts, like 2-8 weeks long. I think people are generally willing to pay more than what would be typical for a long term rental, but usually less than the daily rates on Airbnb- so somewhere in between. My fiance and I usually will spend a little bit more to have a place with a washer/dryer on the premises and a place that allows dogs. We've never had to go through the usual screening or application process like a long term rental, and it's true, our travel agency does background checks and drug tests at least once a year. I'm biased, but I think nurses usually make great tenants, and we're thinking about investing and getting into that rental market as well ourselves. Best of luck!