All Forum Posts by: Marzieh Rostami

Hello BP nation. I wanted to hear your thoughts on building new. Originally I was looking to BRRRR in a gentrifying neighborhood. Most properties in The area I am looking at are in extremely bad shape and need to be torn down. It is very hard to find homes with good bones that would only need little updates and face lifts. Many of them need everything replaced.

Slowly people are buying these homes which are mostly in the 1200 square feet range and building larger townhouses and selling them. I don't have enough money to build a big town house but I could possibly afford to buy a piece of land and build a house with the same square footage (around 1200 sf) this means my house would be much smaller than all the new construction around but I am planning on renting it once it's built and refinanced.

I am curious to hear your thoughts on this strategy.

@Kevin Wood

Do you have any idea on how long it might take with the city?

@Mike Wood

Thanks for providing your numbers. This is very helpful.

@Ashish Acharya

Thanks for the reply. It seems like l would have to pay taxes on it since it hasn't been two years from the sale of my previous home. Do will I be taxed on the sales price minus mortgage balance? What about the amount I spent on improvements? Can I deduct that from the profit?

Let's say I bought the house for $200,000. I had %50 down and spent approximately $50,000 on renovations. And it will now sell for $300,000. What is considered the profit? What amount is going to be taxed?

I have read that if I have lived in my house for two of the last five years I owned it then I won't have to pay taxes. Well I have lived in my house for two years but I've also only owned it for two years not five. Does that still qualify.

I had another house which I sold last year and didn't have to pay taxes on that. So the two properties overlapped from a period of one year. (It took almost a year before I sold the first one and fully moved into the second one). So what happens in terms of taxes if I sell this new one now after two years of ownership.

@Mike Wood

Thank you very much for the detailed information. You are correct we do not have zoning in Houston so that won't be an issue. Yes I was thinking about buying a property in need of a total makeover.

Thanks for providing the numbers. This gives me an idea of what to expect in terms of costs. I wanted to see if this idea is even worth considering. Looks like in your instance it has made sense. I will start researching more so I can get a more accurate perspective on it. Thanks.

@Greg Dickerson

Submeter! That's a good thought. I will have to research that. Thank you.

@Nick Elg

Thanks for the information!

Hi BP community. I wanted to see if anyone in Houston TX has had experience with converting a SFR into a duplex. How difficult is it when it comes to the city and permits? And also how costly is separation of utilities? Would it be worth the trouble?

This an idea that popped into my head recently and I know I need to do a lot of research on it but I thought I'd start here and get some pointers. I'd love to hear your thoughts/experiences.

Thanks in Advance.