All Forum Posts by: Meryl C

I paid a plumber to separate it into four meters  - three for tenants, and one for owner (me) for outside faucets. The city provided the meters at a reasonable (discounted) cost. They view separating the meters as an ecologically sound choice because tenants apparently use a lot less water when they're paying for it. Since the tenants are covering the cost of the water, i was required to install water-saving toilets, sinks, showerheads. I save about $1200 to $1500/year. The plumber cost less than $5000 8 years ago, and that included installing washers and a couple of other items, so i'm already ahead.

Thank you both, Bruce, and Colleen. I wasn't notified that anyone had responded, so I just saw this now. 

To be clear, there's no option of making this into living space. It's just a 220 square-foot garage and no room to expand.

Colleen, You questioned exactly what I wondered… I think new construction has to be 4 feet from the property line, and this is right up against the property line, so I'm not sure it would work.

Many thanks again  

I have a nice and well-maintained three-family in a desirable area. I'd like to condo it, but not sure I want to sell all the units right now. Ideally,  I'd like to sell one, which would enable me to pay off the mortgage, and continue receiving income from the other two.
is this legal? Will it make it hard to sell the other units? I seem to remember from a prior condo that Having one owner own more than one unit might be a potential lending issue?

The other downside I could think of is that the taxes will go up on all three units once I divide it. But is there anything else I'm not thinking of that could be a drawback? And are there also some scenarios where this would be a good idea?
The mortgage is over 300K, so I would love to get rid of it.

Thanks for any advice.

i own a high quality (B plus) 3- family in Western MA. The building is very nice, but the one-car garage is in rough shape. It's probably borderline about whether to renovate or replace. A contractor came out today and said it would cost roughly "at least 10k to 12k" to attend to the structural and other main issues, not including removing and replacing the crumbling concrete foundation, replacing mechanical door, side door, painting, plus anything that reveals itself once he's into the work etc. So I'm thinking that the total will be in the mid-20 range. Seems like i may be able to get it demoed and replaced, including new foundation, for something like 35k to 40kish. I plan to own it for 3 to 10 more years and then condo the whole thing, including the garage.

The third option is to take it down and not replace it. We have only 4 parking spots, for the 3 units, all in a line along the left side of the driveway. We could probably get at least one more spot out of it if we don't replace the garage, but i'm guessing the demo, removal and then creating a parking pad will still cost 7 to 10k.


My questions are these:

1) Does that price for repair (around 25k for a good renovation) seem reasonable for the northeast?
2) With the future plan to sell, would it make more sense to just get rid of the existing garage and build a new one?
3) With limited parking, is it worth entertaining the idea of just killing the garage?
4) What would YOU do?

Many thanks!
Meryl