All Forum Posts by: Monish Lillaney

I'm in the process of gut renovating a three family home -- looking into keeping the STC rating above 50, ideally 60 or higher between each of the levels of the three family. 

I have never done this but I know conventional sheetrock is not a good sound barrier. What i can share is that I am planning on using Mass loaded vinyl on the floors prior to installing the flooring material, insulating the floor/ceiling with fiberglass insulation (perhaps Roxul Safe N Sound), and using QuietRock, with a quarter inch of blueboard on top so my plasterer can plaster the ceiling. This way between floors there are three sound blocking materials. 

Thoughts on getting to 60+ STC?

@Natalie Kolodij @Bob Norton

thank you guys for the advice, i feel like that would be rather easy to prove. I'm actually gutting an entire three family, kitchens, baths, 3 bedrooms, living room, and dining room all by myself. As you can imagine the process of just demo'ing alone is hundreds of hours, maybe thousands i dont really try to think about it that much lol, but I also do all the tiling myself, electrical, hanging gypsum board, flooring, painting, and finish work which i will do on this property. I own other properties as well, which i for obvious reasons don't have any major projects going on, I typically work 40 hours a week at my engineering job, then i also work 4-5 hours a day on real estate between calling contractors for sprinkler installations, fire alarm installation quotes, architect quotes etc. I am also a Construction Supervisor (general contractor in most other states), pull my own permits, and do all the decision making. Finally, as an engineer, i am studying for my professional engineer license after this project is over so i can stamp my own AutoCAD drawings (don't need an architect anymore) --- since getting the license is for my real estate business, i would think studying hours would count as well. I'll talk to my CPA but does the IRS really think im going to log every thing i do? (i.e if im doing the electrical and it takes me 2 weeks to rewire the house before and after work , and on weekends, they want every new chunk of time logged seems ridiculous, that would mean i would have to log 2x per day, since i work before and after work on it for the whole year -- I also am a real estate agent and have about 6 properties i will neeed to conduct showings for into the fall...again to log the myriad things i do seem ridiculous.

Finally the fact that i'm not writing off the expense one would usually pay to have all this contracting work done obviously lends to the fact that I'm doing it myself. If i had a receipt, I'd write it off!! 

I'm more likely to just wear a baseball hat with a camera on it for the whole year -- I'll talk to my accountant, maybe get a new one... 

@david edwards

it seems like my town being close to the city requires it, its not structural, but they want the plans to be overseen by an architect on buildings over 35,000 cubic feet in volume

Hey All, I work as an engineer full-time, but I also work full time on my rental properties since I do all the work myself. I just bought a three family this year, and haven't been able to rent it since COVID, so i decided to gut renovate all three units which is expending ALL of my free time outside of my 40 hour work week as an engineer. Will i be able to file as a real estate professional this year? I have my real estate license, manage my properties, lease renewals, maintenance issues, landscaping, etc, and have no social life lol -- i feel like since i work more than 40 hours outside of my 40 hour corporate job I should be able to... thoughts?

Hey guys, looking at completely guttting a three family, and i understand i will need to put a sprinkler system in since its more than 50% renovation on the home. The system will be a NFPA 13D (which has an exception for three families). My sprinkler guy is saying i also need NFPA 12 system installed for low voltage fire alarm systems , with wireless communication to the firehouse... any one know what is actually required on a three family home?

I'm an RF engineer and i suspect it likely has to do with our salary, as cash for down payments are a major roadblock to getting into the industry. I know people who have a hard time getting 20% together to put down, never mind doing it multiple times!

@Ray Reed pretty straight forward, send a 30 day notice to vacate, If they don’t then start the eviction process. Make sure to have a constable issue the 30 day notice and summary and complaint documents . Hire an eviction attorney if you don’t know how.

Sorry to say but I don’t care whose behind the door, business is business. I just evicted multiple people and one had a family with autistic kids, but they were paying 60% of market value. Again business is business, you wanna make money or lose money ?

Hey all, wanted to get an idea of how much I can expect to save by having a full home fire sprinkler system installed in the home. This is for a three family home. I’ve read some places it’s 50%, and others it’s only 7%, a big difference.

If the savings pay for the install over some period of time, it may be a lucrative way to improve the bottom line longer term. Thoughts?

I understand, I don’t really understand why the building g department needs drawings in the first place. We are just removing the walls, adding new outlets on new circuits, replumbing in the same place, and updating with blown insulation. No moving of walls, or changing of the layout (except the kitchen but changing the layout is pretty common on 1-2 fam homes too and they don’t require drawings .... 

Its the seasonality, but I suspect its certainly something to do with COVID unfortunately -- i also have 3 units vacant, but im upgrading them now, and hoping by mid summer things will alleviate. It doesnt make things easier they've canceled school til next year...