All Forum Posts by: Ben Skove

I'll check out Inman's now and again, though not daily.

One trend I seem to be noticing in the various design magazines and websites is a move away from a full bank of wall cabinets towards different types of shelving. I did this in a rental - used shelves between two tall cabinets, and had positive response about it.

Now that I'm putting a kitchen design together for a flip, I'm wondering what the situation is in retail. I'm sure it varies market by market, but the frugal portion of me (and by portion, I mean ~95%) would really like to be able to be a) on top of the latest design fad, while b) saving a nice chunk of change. Have any of y'all done this, and if so, what was the response? Thanks!

Hi Walter,

The 4-plexes in my neck of the woods still mostly have boilers. It'd be nice to be able to switch the heating to tenant-controlled (and paid) baseboard in your units, but you'll want to see how it affects how you price your units.

If neighboring buildings are getting $550/month with heat included, you might have to price accordingly if you have tenants picking up the heat bill, particularly given that electric heat can be pricey.

Good luck!

For those of us whose talents lie in the more practical portion of the spectrum, Houzz is a great place to shamelessly borrow design ideas. Being able to put in a few keywords and see how other people have pulled elements together has bee useful.

Roy, good point. In this house (and all the other old houses around here) I won't have to worry about it - the floors all slope purposefully to floor drains. Waterproofing was sort of a hopeful thing back then. :)

Good advice...thanks everyone! Great food for thought.

Rob K I've done the white walls/gray floor before, but I hadn't thought about the black ceiling - I like that idea; helps to blend in and hide the jumble overhead.

J Scott Nice paint job! I've pulled out a lot of wood paneling from basements - it seems to be a termite's favorite snack food.

I'm looking at a flip that has an unfinished basement. It's going to stay unfinished given its ARV and the comps in the area.

That being said, what have you done to make an unfinished basement more attractive to a buyer, other than general cleaning? Have you put together a laundry area and staged it? Painted the walls/floor? Or just left it alone?

Steve, thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it.

Steve Babiak I believe you are correct that your formula is the safer one to use; however, I am a little confused. If someone comes to you with a voucher covering 100% of rent, I believe your formula would still require 2x rent in income. Is that correct?

Steve Might They had previous evictions on their record, so it was an easy pass. I would definitely ask the case worker how long the person will be supported - it's usually not as open-ended as Section 8.

Steve Babiak Alternately, you could set QI to equal 3 times the portion of the rent the tenant is responsible for, or QI=3(R-V). Obviously, this is less strict...I'd probably go with your formula, given that there's always the possibility of the voucher going AWOL.

Steve Might I would definitely speak with the social worker before putting the contract together. You'll want to know what their requirements are. Is this the program they're talking about?

http://www.soscs.org/family-services/housing-options

If so, I was approached by a similar agency in my area. They had many fewer strings than Section 8; however, the tenant they wanted to place didn't pass my other criteria.