All Forum Posts by: Nik Moushon

 Thanks Julie. I'm getting $2300/m. Thats up from the $2200 I thought I would get when I started and up from $1900 the damn appraiser said that it would get....I hate appraiser...have I mentioned that? I probably could've gone higher but I think this is a fair market price and don't want to be gouging people. I also had contracts for both units signed within 5 days of putting it on the market. 

Unfortunately, you will be experiencing a lot of delays. Both in material deliveries and labor. I would say just start budgeting it in and start moving forward if you can still get the numbers to work. Rentals are only going to be in more demand going forward. Don't push yourself out too far that you can't take advantage of the coming rental market boom. Obviously, dont extend yourself on the build either. Lumber has dropped a lot since January. Problem is all the stores have stock piles of lumber that they bought at super high prices. So until they sell off their stockpiles of over priced lumber you wont see the price in store drop as much as the stock market value is doing. I had to end up taking on more work than I wanted but that saved us a LOT on labor. Maybe added a little time at the end but not enough to off set with the labor delays. 

Thats assuming the owner actually know what they are looking at. Not saying Leland doesn't, just in general. Its like people who know nothing about cars going out and buying a used car. They look under the hood and crawl underneath and just stare at something in hopes that they see something major out of place but don't actually know how to look for things that prove the car wont break down 2 months after they buy it. 

What people need to get accustom to is just paying the architect to do what they are trained to do. Construction administration. 

If the architect was a part of the construction phase and being there on site to do periodic site visits, that correspond with certain predetermined phases, the odds that this would have been caught at a stage where it could've been fixed go up dramatically.  

Its like medical insurance. Ya, its more cost, and you might not even need it for a while. But when you get into that unexpected car accident you sure as hell are glad you have it. 

@Leland S. The major problems can come depending on how you handle it. If you start throwing people under the bus (even if the deserve it) it never ends good. There are times when you have no other option and you end up burning a bridge. I had to do that with my framer on my duplex I just finished building. He cost me over $10k in damages from him framing things wrong and not according to plan. He is still trying to get me to pay him the remainder of his bill, which doesnt even come close to covering the damages. So ya, it got to the point where I fired him and told him not to come to the site again. Bridge burnt. Sometimes it happens. But its always best to avoid it when you can. The stress alone is not worth it. 

@Eric Teran. His first diagram of how the stair opening should've been framed is spot on. Thats how I've seen it done 90% of the time. I use to work for a big developer outside DC. They made their own 24" wood floor trusses. The same one you are using. I learned how to use MiTek, the truss design program, and this is the go to framing option for stair opening. Its the simplest and most effective way. Period. Eric, is also right that you are pretty much stuck with this unfortunately. Its going to be a huge cost and time delay that probably isnt worth it. They can cut those trusses back and do field fixes. So its possible to insert a steel beam there to span front to back. There is one problem now that you need to figure out. If you add a steel beam, does it create point loads at the front and bcak walls that is too great for your foundation to carry? Typically at those kind of spans, there are huge point loads that require larger footings under the foundation wall. Not always, but more often than not, they do. So if your footing isnt sized to accept a beam like that you might not have that option. A structural engineer will be able to tell you this. 

This brings up another issue too. Since they put in that wall under the trusses, it now is a bearing wall. Is there a footing or thickened slab under that wall? If your plans didnt call for one, because your architect didnt design for one,  odds are there isnt one there. This will lead to your slab cracking and sinking. Because the way the truss designer laid the trusses out, he has effectively sent half the floor load to that small stair wall, plus anything that gets tracked down above it. I would have your GC show proof that there is a footing or thickend slab there. Not just his word. 

The most important thing to do is to look over your contracts. Look for anything that can help you pin the responsibility on to the correct party. Also, look for indemnification clauses. GC love to put those in to try and let them get out of pretty much anything. Most people dont realize that the contracts are the most important part of developing. More so than getting money from the bank or making a profit.

@Eric Teran I can almost guarantee that the arch wrote "Manuf. floor trusses". So they didnt have to provide calcs. Then the GC submitted the calcs from the manufacturer to the city. Thats what happens 99% of the time. Same for roof trusses. But still, a competent arch would at least do a framing plan to give to structural or the truss designer. That way they can track all the loads down and have a way to cover their a$$ when the designer doesnt follow their plans. 

@Leland S., I'm in the same profession as Eric. To find out who's at fault there are a couple things that needs to happen. First, talk with your architect. Have them respond to your GC and framer. Have them do the paperwork, that they will give to you (the owner), that shows that what is built on site does not match the approved architectural plans. Also, get a hold of the floor truss designs and layout. This will show what was designed. You'll also want to get reference as to what got sent to the truss designer. Did they get the old plans that had the wall there? If so, who sent them the old plans. If they had the newest, city approved, plans then why did they add a wall? You will need to work backwards to track where the error originated from and who gave the wrong information out. If something failed structurally, then ya, its the architects fault for not getting a structural engineer. But if someone changed the design without the architects approved permission then it doesnt matter if you had an engineer or not, the design still changed. 

Best way to handle this, as Eric suggested, is get your architect involved ASAP. Its their design and their drawings. They are the ones that need to write all the appropriate letters. You want it to go through them, not you. Their professional seal carries a lot of weight in these types of mistakes/situations and they are the designated go-to mediators in most disputes. Thats what they are trained for and do as a part of their profession and they do get to make the final call in most situations. 

What ever the out come is, and without know all the details and only hearing one side of the story, it sounds like your GC and truss manuf. get to split the cost of fixing this. Just be calm and run the numbers on how much this is going to cost to get fixed. Because you will be fighting this one for a while. Maybe even till the end of the project (hopefully not). You dont want your GC walking off the site or placing liens on your project. 

I have two big complaints about apartments.com during my brief time there so far (transitioning over from Cozy). The first is there is no messenger/chat system like Zillow has. This is really great when doing first talks with a bunch of people. Its a pain to have to text with people I dont want to have my personal number with and email is too slow with responding. The second is the way Apartments.com handles interested tenants. Zillow sends an email with the person name and profile info (if they filled it out), which has name, number, income, pets, etc. Tie this with the messenger/chat it allows for the tenant to make all the first contact and try to get me as much information at the beginning. Where as Apartments.com email just give me the name and contact info. Nothing else. Since it has no messenger/chat option there is no way for the tenant to supply more additional information in their first attempt to contact me. This forces me to not only reach out to the tenant but to try and dig more information out of them. Otherwise I have to wait for an application to come in. To me, its the tenant that should be striving to find and impress me into wanting to rent to them. Not the other way around. Zillow just makes that first contact MUCH easier. 

I'll be sticking with Apartments.com for this next set of tenants to see how it goes. But so far, I'm not impressed with the UI and how to forces contact between tenant and landlord in very specific way. It feels very unnatural human communication and very robotic and unfriendly IMO. 

Sorry for not keeping up with progress reports everyone. Between me just forgetting and then delays after delays, and contractors screwing things up and me having to fix them just led to time just flying by and me never having free time. Its been an extremely busy and extremely long 4 months. Instead of a very long and boring post describing everything that went wrong or got delayed I will just say that I have been stuck in the "2 weeks until I'm done" phase for the last 3 months. Since everyone likes hearing what goes wrong with a project heres a taste: I found out the framers framed every interior door wrong in the ENTIRE building. Not a single head height was correct and half the doors were not even plumb. They also framer my front porch wrong by putting the post and beam in the wrong location making me change up the design and having to reorder roofing material that was ordered too size. The electricians driller 6" holes in my siding where the exterior light use to be but since they forgot to write that change down. The unit addresses were suppose to be on the posts of the front porch...now they are hiding the giant hole in the siding. I would say that the last 20% of the work has taken 50% of the time. 

BUT, I am finally seeing the end of the tunnel. I have my second CO (certificate of occupancy) inspection on Friday and the only thing that is not done is having fiber internet installed. That, unfortunately, I have absolutely zero control over. Between just the massive amount of construction going on and dealing with fire season my small project just keeps getting pushed out. I put my application in 4 months ago and have been on the "project to-do" list for the past 2 months...hopeful get it this next week. I'm not holding my breath. 

I'm not exactly sure where I am on budget. I still have several invoices that are due to come in and I havent paid myself back for a big chunk of expenses I covered along the way. I think I will be slightly over budget. But seeing as the budget I have is from 2019, pre-covid everything, I think I did really good at cost savings and managing the money. I don't want to get too ahead of myself but I think I'll be only about $10-15k over or about 2% over. With everything that is 2020 and its evil twin 2021...I think thats pretty damn good. We'll see if that holds true once I get my spreadsheet all tallied up.

I post a couple pictures of the finished product below. Here is also a link to the 3D walkthrough I had done: https://my.matterport.com/show...

If this is going to be your retirement home in the future and want to keep good relations with your neighbors I would suggest then only renting out the house enough weekends to pay the yearly mortgage. Once you have meet that then stop renting it out. 

If this is not going to be a place where you live and its just a business, then you need to take on a business like attitude towards the neighbors. You dont need to be rude or ignore their complaints. But you cant let them run your life either. I'm sympathetic to the full time residence in places that are heavy to STR. It truly can be a nightmare. But at the same time, places that are heavy to STR, are places that rely on tourism to survive. They have to realize that this is what living in those places comes with. I do support regulations on STRs too. There has to be a compromise somewhere. Its just sad that pretty much the only compromise the anti-STR ppl want is an out-right ban on STRs and wont listen to any other reasoning.

Having the approve variance is important buts its a far cry from having the permit set approved. They are very different processes and take vastly different amounts of time for approval. 

If you don't know how to list, promote or sell a property then you should find a REA that specializes in development sales. You will have to do your research on which local REA is your best option. 

Yes, you can sell the land at a premium if you have all those things in order. The key though is to have the permit ready to be issued. That means going through the entire city review process and have everything approved. Shovel ready, as they call it. What you are selling is "time saved" and the extra up front capital that isnt needed. 

If they are not permit ready then you can still sell at a premium but not much. Its not very enticing to buy something that you didnt get input on design and layout to have to sit through 12-24 months of city review.  

Yes architects can do their own engineering in all 50 states. And yes, we are trained in engineering. One of the 6 exams I have to pass to become a licensed architect is a structures exam. All accredited degree programs require structure classes. So they can do the design and provide the calcs for it. A lot choose not to because of liability purposes and just the fact that it takes extra time and skill. 

I do it for just about every residential project that goes through my office. But thats usually where it stops is with residential. Once  you get to commercial then you are required a SE. Our engineering studies are not to the extent of a SE. Neither does our liability cover much past residential design and even then, once you get to the crazy magazine cover, multi-mutli million dollars homes the structural design can get to a point that is beyond even the most well versed architects.