All Forum Posts by: Sam Usman

Hi - I want to purchase a land for development in Dallas-Fort Worth area. I want to develop townhomes. I recently came across a land that is zoned as 'Urban Neighborhood' in Rowlett, TX. I spoke with the city planning department to check if I can build townhomes on this land and they informed me that I can build townhomes for up to 80% of the property and the rest needs to be mixed use (retail/office or apartments). The planning department also emailed me a document with all the details of what can be build on the land.

I want to know how many townhomes I can built on the land and the documents that I got from the city is very! complicated and I am having difficulty understand it.

I want to know what developers do to find out what they can (and cannot) build on a land. I am assuming that not all the developers are fully aware of all the zoning rules and details. Do they hire some one like an architect or some firm for this? If yes, how much they usually charge for this service?
 

@ Carl Suverkrop - thanks for the info.

I looked at the city website and it says that the land is zoned as SF-7.5/12. The definition of SF-7.5/12 is
"General Purpose and Description: To provide for the development of single-family detached
dwelling units with a minimum floor area of 1,200 square feet per unit on lots of not less than
seven thousand five hundred (7,500) square feet."

Based on this I believe I can develop SFH with a min of 7500 sqft lot area.

I will call the city to get more info.

Hi - I am getting an off-market 1 acre land in Mansfield, TX for a good price. On the Tarrant county website it show State Code for the land as 

State Code: C1 Vacant Land Residential

Does anyone know if we can do multifamily / apartment or town homes development on a land with 'C1 Vacant Land Residential' code?

@Lucia Rushton and @Austin Sine - thanks for sharing your thoughts. 

Regarding the team, I do have lenders lined up along with the property management companies and currently I am actively looking for deals in the DFW area.

Hi - I am looking for my first commercial apartment deal in Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. My range is around 1.2 million and so I am looking for a smaller apartment building. I have some multifamily homes in Philadelphia and this would be my investment in DFW area. I am looking for apartment deals for the last few 4 months but the best I can find (in a decent area) is 7% cap rate. The problem that I see with most of the 7% cap rate deals is that either the building is too old (80+ years old) OR the numbers does not make sense (like seller shows low expenses...less than 40% etc.). I want to know from the experienced investors if I am missing anything?...do i need to work more hard to find good deals? Is it even possible to find a good deal (7.5% cap or more) these days in DFW area?