All Forum Posts by: Phil Weiler

Hi Brandon, It seems like you are very much on the right track. To follow up on Greg's post I'd get that building permit in hand or at the very least have them review what you are planning on doing. Even extend your due diligence period on the contract if needed. Since you are building in St. Pete I'd want to be extra sure that you are not going to have any flood/elevation issues. The permit will also iron out any number of smaller issues. (Easements, elevation, water, sewer, etc)

On a separate note the St. Pete market has a high demand for new single family home construction. As long as you are not out building the neighborhood you should be able to get a premium at sale.

I know this is not the answer you are looking for. But I would see if you can't get another chance to get in front of both sellers (Probably separately). You can save them a bunch of headache by avoiding this going through the court process. Sometimes this works out. Sometimes one of the parties in the divorce simply does not want any direct connection with the other party. Find out what their goal is and help with that. Make selling the property just part of it.

Stick to your guns and keep going. Each state has there own requirements for what an agent has to do. The idea that an agent has to present all offers applies to the listing agent. Meaning an agent can not pick and choose what offers they let the seller see. On the buyer side they have a choice, there is not a law requiring them to work for everyone who asks. They can pick there clients. However they must be honest and ethical, meaning they can't say they submitted and offer and then not actually do it. My recommendation is find another realtor. 

An investor friendly realtor will realize that on the buy side they should just plan on covering expenses. With the idea that they will do more volume then the average home buyer and when they are ready to sell they will get that business. 

Hello Jared,

Welcome to the world of being a real estate agent. Feel free to reach out to me I can give you my perspective. There are a bunch of good companies. It mostly depends on your goals which model you should join.

I'll send you a PM.

A real rough and ugly way to see what it will add is look at the average sq ft price for you neighborhood and then multiply that by the space you are adding to your home. Keep in mind you may need to subtract little value because you no longer have a Florida room.

As I'm sure you can understand there are many variables in figuring out the cost. Generally I encourage people not to do major project before resale it's hard to recoup your costs. (Unless you are flipping the property)

Feel free to give me a call and I can help you with better numbers for your property. I have a rough grid I can plug it into that I use when I'm doing a Market Analysis.

For the remodel work, there are different rough calculators you can use here on BP. But the best way is just get a couple quotes and see. There can be big variables depending on your existing building and the finished you want to use.

It was done on my house in Pinellas county. Added a second master suite (Mother in law suite) took my home from a 3bed 2 bath to a 4 bed 3 bath and added a second living space. (large Florida room) I'd call a few GC's and get quotes. They can also walk you thru the process of permitting. They should be able to give you a real good overview of the process in the initial walkthrough. I do highly recommend getting the proper permits. Just last week I had a deal fall through where I was representing the buyer and they could not get financing on the property because the appraiser did not include the non-permited Florida room conversation.

@Ryan Johnston, if you are just using it for your deals then that type of broker is what you need. There are a few like that. Also keep in mind the MLS fee (varies depending on where you live) and you'll probably need to sign up for Supra or a service like it that gives you access to homes that have the digital lock boxes. Feel free to give me a call and I'll give you my actual numbers.

Hello @Ryan Johnston Welcome to the great career of being a real estate agent. I'd recommend the Bob Hogue School of Real Estate. My experience was half of the test was information memorized from the book and the other half was common sense. 

When you get thru the test I'd encourage you to interview with a few different brokerages they can have significantly different cultures and financial models.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. I'd be more then happy to tell you about my experience going thru the process.

I've looked at a couple investment properties just like this in the Tampa Bay Area.  With the marketing being fighting up this might be the kind of thinking that needs to happen. With the idea of completely changing the curb appeal. moving the water supply thru the attic and adding proper HVAC in the attic.

Hello Kevin, 

I agree with @Brian Varmuza. It depends on your goals both short term and long term. For me, real estate is primary and investing in secondary so it effected which companies I looked at. Give me a call and we can talk about it in more detail.