All Forum Posts by: Susan St. Martin

Jason, You probably already got your roof done but I just saw this. Rick Harvey from John Minter Construction is great as well and really reasonably priced. His company is : John Minter Construction and John was a roofer in the valley for years as he just retired at like 80 years old! and Rick took over the business after working for him for years. 

If the kitchen has a decent layout then you can save yourself a lot of money by keeping the cabinet bases and just changing out the door styles. You could either paint everything or get a bid for one of the companies called "Enhance" (or something like that) where they refinish the wood. Then put in a fresh sink , fixtures and appliances and new knobs on the doors and put your money into new countertops and floors. And of course a few cool lights. Try to find some slab granite pieces in the boneyards of the suppliers. They will be significantly less than buying a whole slab. And if you don't need to do granite then there are some really nice laminates out there now a days. Here is one kitchen we did where we worked with what was there and just moved the refrigerator and added an eating bar. 

Thanks for sharing John! My husband and I are just beginning our journey and due diligence into this type of investing as it one type of RE investing we have no experience in. This has got me even more excited about the opportunities. 

Thanks again Tom. Will do!

Chris, that is exactly how I just wrote it up. Thanks for your input.

Tom- yes, lot price is good for area. With square foot cost of duplexes, we should be good in the end. It will be a real small duplex. Lot is small and I will match the one next door. SDC's should only be about 11K . 

Thanks again to both of you for your input. Offer is in. We will see how it goes. The other duplex is on Airbnb and is making great money. Will continue down that path with it. 

Hi Everyone,

This may seem like a simple thing but it's been awhile since I have done this. We are buying a duplex and we are financing that outright and then next door she has a vacant lot that we are going to purchase too. She has already said she would carry paper. 

So the purchase price would be $60k - the plan is to put another duplex on in it in the near future - so a balloon pymt would be fine.

Can someone give me suggestions on how to write this up? I was thinking a 5 year balloon maybe 6% interest. But wasn't sure on the amortization. Do you only do 20 years on an amount so small?

What is the calculation for figuring out the payments? Also would like to know how to figure out interest only payments? 

Thanks in advance.

We have always removed the old before applying the new. When leaving the old and applying over it, thats kinda like putting whipped cream on dog #$it. Recently we pulled all the paneling off the walls in the basement of a house we were redoing and as mentioned earlier there was a nasty mastic holding the paneling on that was giving us grief to remove, so instead of spending days scraping we just put a new layer of 1/4 inch rock in its place and finished it out. One big advantage of this was all the window and door jambs planned out flush again. if you remove the paneling these will all stick proud of finish by a 1/4 inch.

Cesar, Gail has a very good point. we have rehabbed and built many custom homes. I have used real wood, engineered and laminate flooring and only recently started using the vinyl products. We recently put a 100% waterproof vinyl planking in a basement off a pool area and it has held up extremely well. Keep in mind that even though engineered floors are assembled they are still real wood and will take on moisture, this is also true for laminates. We feel anytime you are looking for durability you should go with a solid vinyl or a vinyl planking. The planking is also really easy to install.

Thanks everyone. i figured I would need to start doing some research but I thought I might throw it out there to see if anyone had a source that wouldn't hassle too much with it. 

Is it possible to get a line of credit on a rental property these days?