All Forum Posts by: Raven Parmer

Jay Leisten this property is an estate, the daughter of the woman who owned the property said she bought it as a duplex, and I don't know how many years she has owned it. I can find out though. Somewhere around 10 years I believe.

@Pavel Reyes Valdes according to LOJIC map the house is just R5. 

@Jay Leisten we have considered trying to get a variance or zoning change, but looking for the path of least resistance. Hoping that since it has been rented this way for who knows how long, to continue to rent it shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks!

I'm sure the answer to this question will vary by location, but here goes. We are under contract for a duplex with an additional carriage house apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. This will be a live-in flip, and we plan to rent the carriage house the whole time we are there- probably about five years. We plan to rent the first floor of the duplex for about a year, at which point we will convert the house back to single family. Our appraisal took forever, and we almost had to extend our contract because they would not give us an ETA. Finally got it back, and the house is zoned R5, which is a single-family residence. Basically the whole street and a few neighboring streets are also all zoned R5. I know for a fact that there are three 4+/- unit apartment buildings on the same block as this house. They were built as multi family and are used as multi family. I feel like this is a dumb question, especially with my background in architecture, but I work in commercial and I haven't dealt personally with any zoning issues. What kind of problems would we have if we continue to rent out this house which has been rented for years and years? It is separately metered, and I just don't understand how that was even done if the zoning was wrong. I know we can have the zoning changed, but I really don't want to go through that if it's not necessary. The area of Louisville that this house is in – the Highlands – is full of rentals and multi family homes. Right now the bank is working on trying to change the loan from a duplex to a single family so that we can close. That would actually be beneficial for us because the closing cost should be less. It looks like we are going to have to extend the contract either way, as it is up tomorrow. I appreciate any insight.

I would remove all the broken pieces of concrete or block, and depending on condition of existing concrete pad, leave the concrete and seed or sod the rest with grass. If you aren't wanting grass, maybe carve out a curve in the non-concrete side and plant a few ornamental grasses or hydrangeas or soemthing that will grow big. Mulch around it. I personally would never want a back yard of all gravel- feels too cold to me. And if you were planning on doing an area of gravel, maybe get some nicer stuff like a gray river Rock or something. Maybe have a big mulch area then a band of rock then the concrete "patio." If you are doing the work yourself, it shouldn't cost too much. It will be hard work, heavy lifting but just by cleaning out the debris, you will make a big difference.

Thanks for all the replies so far. I'm doing this on my phone so I can't go back and tag specific names, but I'll try to answer questions as I remember them. If I am understanding the first responder correctly, and the security deposit has to transfer to me upon closing, then it would be in seller's best interest to have her out before we close. She would at least get 850 out of her 2000. Which leads me to the second responder, and I agree. If the tenant is this far behind, she's not going to be able to pay the seller back (specially if she's about to have to come up with a first, last, security for a new place…). I don't understand her reasoning either, but this is just what our realtor is conveying to us. I believe the third response asked why she was selling – it is to settle an estate. The original owner had many rental properties, and the daughter has been selling them off. We actually just found out how far behind the tenant is on rent. All we knew up until this point is that she was sometimes slow to pay. We were planning on terminating her "lease" all along, within a month or two of closing, but with this knowledge, I just want her out before we move in. I don't want to deal with her. And as far as doing damage – she actually seems like a really nice girl – so I really don't think she will do anything. I would just feel better having all my bases covered. This house needs so much work, I doubt there's a much damage she could do that we wouldn't be addressing eventually anyway. As far as how good the deal is, I think it's a pretty good one. It's a turn of the century house in the Highlands in Louisville, Kentucky, in a great neighborhood. It's fairly large and has an unfinished attic that we are going to finish out to add square footage. With the Carriage house in the back we will have some rent income the whole time we are there. We are purchasing for 280 K, will put 80 K in it, and we will live there for five years-ish. We do 90% of the work ourselves, as my husband is a general contractor. We hope to sell for 450+. This isn't a typical house hack or flip, as far as the BP community goes, but this is how we apparently do things. It's almost like a hobby. My goal is that we could we can to do faster track projects on the side. We are just finishing our first house, which we did in similar fashion. Once we sell it I'll post the results. Thanks again everyone!

We are under contract on a new place, a duplex with a separate garage apartment. The owner passed away, and her daughter is selling the property. From what she can tell there is no lease, and the tenants are unofficially month-to-month. we are buying this house to live in and convert to a single family. We plan to keep one tenant - "the guy" - for at least a year. The seller says the other tenant - "the girl" - is often late on rent and is currently $2000 behind (July rent -$850- has not been paid). We have asked the seller to give her the 30 day notice before we close so that we can have a clean break and not have "the girl" in the house at all. The seller doesn't want to do that because she thinks that might hinder her chance of getting her money back. But, if we close, and "the girl" is still in the house, we won't have any kind of lease or security deposit. I guess we would immediately give her 30 days notice, and hope she pays us for the month she's there? And hope she doesn't trash the place. Because if she's $2k behind, there's no way she can come up with rent+ security for us. Our agent has been speaking with a real estate attorney but I wanted to see if you guys had any good advice too! Thanks!

First, I love the houses in Old Louisville, and as much as I would love to restore one, I could never make the numbers work. Partly because of the sheer size of the houses, but also because they are often chopped up into multiple apartments, which I think would be very costly to undo. Lastly, there is a ceiling on sale price, as, in my opinion, the area is still a little sketchy. I have a hard time understanding how you could convert 4 units back to one house for only $30K. First of all, I can only assume you wouldn't be able to salvage one of the kitchens, so there's at least $10K (but probably more like $15K). There's going to be 3 other kitchens you will have to abandon. That's plumbing and electrical work. There's going to be 4 bathrooms. Assuming they were all in a good location for the floor plan (which they are probably not), I am sure you would have to renovate them. Then, you will be removing walls - who knows what you will find in there. You will probably have to refinish floors. It goes on...Now, I said all that negativity - BUT I have not seen the house. I do not know how big it is. It might be pristine. The floor plan might work exactly as it is. I don't know. Good luck and keep us posted!

Agree with above that I find the peninsula to be more functional, but people do love their islands. The benefit to the island is the traffic flow -there's not a dead end. I would probably do the island here. 

Agree that butcher block would require some amount of care from your tenants (if this is a rental), which is unlikely. However, contrary to a poster above, I think they do look nice. We have one on our basement bar, which we oiled. Oil seeps out of it onto anything absorbent you put on it (paper, etc...) even almost a year later. I helped my mom put them in the kitchen at her house, and we sealed those with waterlox (she does not use them as a butcher block). It has held up ok, but she has had to sand and re-seal. We also looked at epoxy resin coatings to put over them, similar to what people put on bars. It wasn't the look my mom was after, so we didn't try it ourselves, but that may be a way to get longer wear out of them? There are tutorials online. As for tile countertops in a kitchen, I generally think that is a bad idea. Grout is porous and I have visions of little e coli partying in there... It also stains, and it would be a nightmare to keep clean. Laminate is probably your best option. Although, if it was a rental that I planned on holding on to for a while, I'd probably try to make granite fit the budget (assuming its a small kitchen). Pick something really neutral, and it will last.

Dishwasher for sure.