All Forum Posts by: Peter Sanchez

I was listening to another podcast, which i won't name and one of them asks his guests about their best real estate deal.  Mine was my first.  I moved to DC in 2000 and got a job at a law firm and looked at buying a condo.  At the time, DC had a first time homebuyer tax credit of up to $7K.  It varied by income and disappeared completely if you made more than 80k/year.  Since I started working in September (prior to that I was a student with $0 income) I would qualify for the full amount that year, and nothing the following year.  So I looked at tons of places and bought a studio for $70k.  I closed a few days before the end of year, right under the wire.  

So I put 10% down. Which is $7k, but I got it back a few months later because of the tax credit, so it was like doing a nothing down deal.  So 70k-7k means my cost basis was 63k. 

By pure luck, this was the beginning of the housing bubble in DC.  I sold it 3 years later for $210k.  AND  since it was my primary residence, all the appreciation was tax free.  I think I spent about $5k to retile the bathroom, but nothing else.  

What about your best real estate investment ever?  

@Jacob Elbe I'm in no hurry so I can wait until I find one that makes sense.  Most of the time I see a promising one, it doesn't work out because there are restrictions on renting (owners only, or 50+ etc), but I have a brother who is a broker so if another one comes up that makes sense I can jump on it quickly. 

@James Wise thanks! 

@Jaime Penix mine are in Palm Beach County, I think the closer you get Miami, the more condos are available, especially since a lot of out of state buyers got wiped out and had to give them up.  I agree houses can be better, but I can get into a condo cheaper and diversify my exposure for the same amount of money.  

Thanks, @Jacob Elbe , honestly I wouldn't do another rehab out of state. Even with my Dad, a retired contractor, handling it.  He put too much work into it, which was unnecessary.  Something that needs minimal work, not a total gut job, would be okay to do again.  

I have two condos in the same community, one of them I bought as a bank REO and I had the carpet torn out and replaced with tile (very common in florida homes) so for $5k + the $20k I paid for it, I got a place that appraised at $40k a year later. I bought another one in the same complex for $45k (by now the 2BR condos were selling about 55k), but I know that's it's going to keep going up from there, and even if it doesn't, it's still going to be a way to generate cash without burning a lot of calories.

I like the idea of condos from out of state because a lot of the bigger stuff is the responsibility of the condo association, and condos sell quickly if i need to cash out.  

Welcome @Jesse Doyle !  I joined BP this week too.

Hi BP,  I discovered the podcast recently and decided to check out the community.  

I'm a lawyer in DC, but most of my family is in Florida, which is why I invested down there.   I come from a family of contractors and know about construction, which is why I bought and renovated a 100 year old townhome in DC, which I live in.  I also own two 2BR condos in Palm Beach County, which I hope to hold onto forever (or until I move down there and live in it).  

My Dad and I successfully flipped a house in florida, and unsuccessfully did another.  

We also started a eco-friendly plastic moving boxes rental company in South Florida.

In the next year, I hope to sell my townhome, buy something smaller with the cash in DC and use the rest to buy another couple of properties in Florida.  

Looking forward to reading up on all your successes and meeting some of you in person if we are nearby.  Cheers! 

All your base cabinets aren't 18". From that last pic you posted, it looks like it's 36" than an 18".  I would, take out that corner one (18") and move the second one to the over to the right. You can put the 24" dishwasher where the big one used to be. 

Now...you've got 6" of extra space, left over. Try using fillers and put 1.5" on each side of the dishwasher and a 3" filler between the last cabinet and the wall.  All done and no need for new cabinets. 

Welcome, Colin.  I'm also a JD living in DC but hoping to get to Florida eventually.  My Dad used to live in Hollywood and we flipped a house there a few years back. 

A word of advice about Hollywood:  the city can be sticklers.  The house we were flipping had a pool house used a separate apartment/inlaw suite.  When they came to inspect the roof on the main house, they saw the inlaw suite (which wasn't having any renos done) had a kitchen and made us take it out even though it was there when we bought it.  Extra time and money for no reason.  Ugh.

I just joined BP after listening to the podcast too.  I haven't done an intro post yet, but i'll get to it this weekend.    

Besides a lawyer...you can get them online from companies like RocketLawyer or LegalZoom, which ask you questions (like TurboTax) and them it generates a pretty generic form that you can modify to suit your needs. 

By the way, @Kirsten Mastro I have a couple of properties in the lake worth area.  I also started a company that rents plastic reusable moving crates for your move called Elf Boxes (www.elfboxes.com) that is based in Lake Worth.

@Jon Holdman is right, 1) you should get rid of those ball valves, and 2) the whole setup is not good.  It looks like you've got copper to galvanized, which isn't a great idea, and yeah, that copper pipe isn't meant to hold up that whole getup.

If this is from your main water line (not a well), then you should already have a ball valve in the house that turns water off, so those extra ones are not necessary.  The one inside the house should shut that off, so you can keep open the bib and keep the water inside that line from freezing.

If you don't want to change out the copper underground, a handyman should be able to cut that off the damaged part attach new copper pipe pretty cheaply.  You can learn how from YouTube and some practice, but after buying the other tools you'll need (pipecutter, propane, solder, etc), most of which you'll never use again, you'll end up paying as much as hiring a handyman.   

Well, marble has veins and can be tempermental, but not granite.  He probably doesn't have the right tools to cut it, The marble/granite yard cuts it with a giant wet saw and polishes it there.  You can cut it on site, but it takes a long time, is dusty and takes work to get it looking right.  

There are a lot of composite materials that look like granite, you can probably find leftover pieces for not a lot of money.