All Forum Posts by: Michelle Park Senyard

Hi Haley! Would love to chime in. Are you doing a flip and trying to keep costs as low as possible? If so, neutral, updated and home depot/amazon is definitely the right way to go. One thing to consider is also looking at other homes on zillow around your address, if you see that everyone is doing homes the same way then yes, you should consider what color, tile, and updates can really make yours standout. 

Flooring: I personally love home depot's LVP in Easy Oak. It's a really beautiful warm color that is neutral, durable, and cheap.

Wall color: Snowbound works but just know that it tends to be slightly colder. I have loved greek villa and alabaster from SW as they are slightly warmer esp with sun. I agree that doing the walls, trim and ceilings the same color is a great option. If you are flipping to sell, it may be best to present the house with an open airy feel that is ripe with potential.

Kitchen finishes: Our primary home was a flip with white cabinets and black finishes. We loved it when we bought the house and what mattered to us most at the time was the layout of the kitchen, not the color of the cabinets. If they were a better material, I probably would have loved the house even more but if they were a color I didn't like it would have been a harder sell for me. Now that I'm a more experienced designer in real estate, I would love to customize my kitchen more with different materials, unique tile, and more unique pulls/knobs but having a large, clean kitchen was extremely appealing to me as a first-time buyer 4 years ago. I've also renovated another kitchen to just have white cabinets and black finishes to keep things as cheap as possible. Photos were great, and we got a renter quickly at a higher rent. At the end of the day your cabinet colors will not necessarily add $ to your purchase price since color is so subjective. I'm a fan of the more neutral color choices so that you can stage your home in such a way that there are more options and opportunity to create more pop for your photos. White subway tile + white paint + white cabinets + black finishes = a great formula to keep cost low while achieving a modern look that will appeal to buyers.

Happy to connect and hope this helps!

Hi DJ, 

Nice rental! Are you looking to refresh your rental listing and update the interior? Or figure out ways to add more value to the house in general? Where is your rental located? I'm an Airbnb/VRBO owner myself, happy to help consult on some design improvements, but it'd be helpful to learn more of what your goals are.

Hi everyone,

Sharing here on BP that I'm eager to connect with any RE investors who need help designing/furnishing their rentals. I'm based out of California and have a design background in art and photography. Over the past couple of years, I have been applying my expertise towards growing my husband's and my real estate portfolio. We have 4 properties, including our primary home, a 7 bed/7 bath luxury cabin, and 2 long term rentals that are a 3/2 and a 3/1. We renovated a 3/2 rental this year, and were able to increase its rent by 72%. I'm also proud to say that our lake house Airbnb has a perfect 5 star rating. 

As we continue to expand our real estate portfolio, I am open to freelancing my creative design expertise with like-minded investors who may need help on the design and furnishing side of the house and/or prefer to hire it out completely.

Happy to connect and chat more!

Quote from @Laura Williams:

Thanks @Dan Krupa

I realized my previous post didn’t post links I wanted. Here’s an example to show Michelle a couple of incredible high end condo buildings that have been popping up in KC recently and there are more coming. You can not buy in these and only rentals but this is competition for your high end condos here. KC has upped its game https://threelightkc.com/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAApHxC...


and another one 

https://twolightkc.com/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAot7eLL...

Hi @Laura Williams and @Dan Krupa,

Thanks for the info. In regards to the condos, I see - I thought you had originally meant that condos would be good to invest in but now I understand you were warning about the competition. 

Out of curiosity what is the avg. sale price we should be expecting in KCMO for a 3/1.5+ and what is the avg. rent/month you charge on your long term rentals? 

We'd be interested in something ~$200K-$300K, and would be willing to put in ~$40-$50K of renovations if needed. I can definitely research this on my own but just want to get a gut check if this would be hard or easy to find in the areas you both invest in. 

Laura, super helpful to see your POV on the type of unit breakdown. Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that.

Thank you @Dan H. @Whitney Hill @Caroline Gerardo @Brandon Foster and everyone else! This has been EXTREMELY helpful. For those of you who shared contacts, I'll reach out. It'd be helpful to get some quotes too to work with some up-to-date #s.

I distilled most of this info into a table just to document all the pros/cons/costs that were mentioned. We have a separate spread sheet to crunch the actual numbers but this is helping me think about it more conceptually as I integrate this feedback. Let me know if you think I should add anything else here as we continue to consider this path. Thanks again Bigger Pockets community!

Quote from @Caroline Gerardo:

@Dan H. is correct the ADU cost DOES NOT equal the value in appraisal or sale price.

Do not spend more than $100000 on 600 square feet. 

How large is your lot? Is your home single story? Are you planning to move in to the ADU and travel? Are you holding this house forever and giving it to your children when you die?

HELOC max rate is usually 22% and they are 15 year loans. prime +0 is good; however, I suggest you ask for fixed rate second instead.

It's important that the style flows with existing house. If it's a metal geodesic dome and your main house is an English cottage it's going to bring value down.  

 Hi Caroline, 

Our square footage for the ADU would be about 350 sq ft. so it'd be a studio, potentially a lofted studio. Our house is two stories and we would not move into the ADU ourselves, however we'd ideally be able to give the ADU to our in-laws as a separate space when we start having kids, and then rent it out when our in-laws are not living in it.

In regards to how long we'd hold onto the house, I'm not sure but our primary home is 4 br, 3 bath (it's only the two of us) in a really great area and the home has increased in value since we bought it in 2021. So we still have plenty of room to grow into the home as we expand our family, and we expect the value of the home to keep rising. 

I appreciate your advice on the fixed rate, we'll definitely be asking for that from potential lenders. 

Quote from @Travis Biziorek:

 Michelle, I'm doing this in the Central Coast. 

Like you we wanted to save as much as possible. So we did find a builder that will "white box" it for us. That will allow us to do the finishes (flooring, cabinets, tiling, etc.)

The problem with that is you likely won't be able to find a lender willing to work with you. In fact, you need to be pretty smart with how you present your plans to the city too.

We're tearing down our garage and rebuilding with an expanded footpring of 1,030 sq ft. The first level will be garage, storage, and a 1 bed/1bath for guests.

The second level will be a 2 bed/1 bath unit. 

The costs definitely add up. We're into it for ~$19,000 and we haven't broke ground yet (should in a few weeks). That $19k includes architectural, structural engineer, soils report, and permitting costs.

The city also requires solar for new builds of our size. So that's another $14,000 we weren't planning on.

Our builder quoted us $160,000 for the build. I imagine we put another $50k into finishes.

So we're likely looking at $235k or so to get it done. Let's call it $250k.

Granted, ours is a larger project than a typical ADU but hopefully that helps!

Hi Travis,

Thanks so much for sharing your experience! Sounds like a great sized ADU, hopefully you can rent it out for a nice price. We would do something quite a bit smaller at around 350 sq ft. and ideally look for a single renter (like a traveling nurse). We'd also likely keep some of the structure of the garage, and the roof pitches up so we could also turn it into a lofted unit. 

May I ask when you started the project and how you chose to finance it? Or could you expand on any issues you got from lenders, and what route you ultimately took? I'm also curious if any other unexpected learnings you've discovered so far in regards to the staffing, building and permitting as you're in the middle of it right now. Thanks!

Quote from @Laura Williams:

Hi Michelle!
I've been investing in KC since 2014. Like the other person commented before I don't recommend STR here at the moment. KCMO has pretty much banned any new ones except owner occupied and other areas around KCMO like north Kansas City and Shawnee have completely banned them. STR seems to be a hot topic in many city councils around here & talks of more bans coming in other areas.

The long term rentals have always been a healthy market here. Most of my rentals get tenants right away. If I were you and investing right now I would be looking at the areas around where the future east-west street car is coming and also around where the north south line is being finished next year. There’s been hundreds of million of development along the route with super high end condos etc. 
Here’s an article that just came out about it https://fox4kc.com/news/east-west-kc-streetcar-study-release...

Hi Laura, thank you this is SUPER helpful. Following up on your investments in KCMO, what kind of long-term rentals have you found most successful? Are they single family homes, multis, or are they high-end condos? Thanks again in advance for your thoughts.

Quote from @Salvador Jimenez:

Michelle - Dan brings up some value points. 

Maybe you should analyze your deal by understanding what the converted ADU would rent for. For example, a 3-car garage will yield you around a 750 sf ADU. That is enough space for a 2 bedroom 2 bath ADU. Search in your area what a 2 bedroom apt. rents for... let's say $2,600 for a typical 2-bed apartment unit. Your ADU will be a newly built non-apartment 2 bedroom unit so it should rent for about 2,800 - 2,900/mo. (please verify these numbers). The ADU should bring in around 34k - 36k per year. Let's assume the ADU will cost you 200k (I personally would not pay north of that figure to convert your garage). So that's an estimated 17% ROI on your investment. In 6 years you should recover your invested cash. And if you're ok with that then pull the trigger and convert the garage. That's the way I would look at it.

Good luck!

Thanks Salvador. Yes, we agree with the above points as well and we created a quick cost benefit analysis. After inputting some initial numbers, we're seeing a 4.7% cash-on-cash return if we can keep the cost of building the ADU ~$170K at an 8.5% interest rate and get it to rent for $2K/month with the size of the attached studio that we could build.

We're still weighing if we would prefer moving forward on building this, or if we prefer doing another LTR out-of-state, so hoping to hear more experiences from SD folks who have constructed an ADU.

Thanks again for the advice!

Yes we do, we have equity in our primary home for a HELOC - we talked to one bank and they offered a prime + 0 rate, but we would want to shop around and see what other rates/deals on rates are being offered.