All Forum Posts by: Maureen F.

My son has a 3-unit house under agreement with a S. 8 tenant in a 3BR unit.  (He will owner-occupy one of the units.)  It's in the Dorchester/Roxbury area, I guess we could call it a C+/B- area.  The current owner just leased it to the S. 8 tenant two months ago, so she has ten months left under lease.  The rent is $1600 (tenant pays all utilities except water/sewer) and we think the owner could have gotten a higher rent if he did a better job marketing.   (The ad only asked for $1600 and the photos were poorly done -- although the max that would have been allowed in 2015 given the utility allowance was $1671).   Anyhow, we looked up the S. 8 Payment Standard and it looks like the 3BR went up by $278 on 1/1/16 from $1861 to $2139 (which is an amazingly big increase but indicative of what's happening in the market).  The utility allowance for this unit is $190, so now the maximum allowable rent would be $1949.  It's a large unit with laundry hook-up; we estimate that the market rent is $1800.   Thinking ahead to next fall we want to petition the BHA for a rent increase.  Does anyone have experience and an idea of how difficult that would be?  Do we have to show that the rent is reasonable for the immediate area by presenting data about comparable units rented to market rate tenants?

Hi Derreck, I looked in the MA database and it lists each of the three apartments in the building I'm buying as having lead paint, per inspections done in 1996 (and one in 2004).  Is it possible to get ahold of the actual inspections to find out the extent and exact locations of the lead paint?  The seller said he has no knowledge of whether the building has lead paint.  

Thanks Ray!  We have a multifamily under contract (to use as a rental and owner occupancy, maybe condo-ize it someday) in the Roxbury/Dorchester area and would like to make something of the basement, which has a high ceiling and looks dry, but of course they're always damp at least.  The plan could be anything from storage units to an apartment depending on how tough approval would be.  Do you happen to have more info about the type of dehumidifier?

congrats!  Are you looking for tenants or did you inherit?  If the latter are the rents at it near market?

This is great -- thanks for sharing Ray!  Brings back memories -- I used to rent an apartment around the corner on Kevin Road for $160 month, and then I went across the intersection and bought a 6-6-6 decker on Roseclair for 24K -- that was a long time ago! (In the interest of full disclosure, only one of the units was inhabited/able.)

Sounds like an awesome deal - Congratulations Mike!

Hi, I'm a newbie to this great community!  Currently my son is buying a three unit house in Dorchester.  The basement has a high ceiling, about 12 feet.  The seller mentioned that at one time there was a unit down there, long before his ownership, although I don't see mention of it in the building permits.  How hard would it be to get approval to develop a unit there?  What are the criteria and process?  I know you need two means of egress.  Thanks for any and all thoughts!