All Forum Posts by: Todd Whiddon

DUE DILIGENCE PART 1 

On a flip with a tight budget, we may pick a house apart to make sure the deal works, but for major renovation projects and new construction, Due Diligence is a bit different.

For this project we aren’t necessarily PRIMARILY focused on the conditions INSIDE the house, but on the conditions OUTSIDE the house. Here are the first 2 of things we check on our new construction of major additions.

SEPTIC / SEWER

This can be SUCH a dealbreaker, we check it first. The septic / sewer situation determines if a house can be expanded / built MUCH more than zoning. Generally, you have more options with sewer. Regulations regarding septic systems vary across the country. GET FAMILIAR with the rules in the areas you are investing in. This project is on sewer and the size of the tap was sufficient for our addition project, BUT a house ON THE SAME STREET that we put an offer on happened to be on SEPTIC. When we ran the math on the size of the lot and septic system specs for the county, there was NO “affordable” way to expand or build a bigger house, we had to KILL that deal.

Become friends with the county engineers, sometimes if a house is on septic there are opportunities to hook into existing sewer lines.

Become friends with a good septic guy and the county environmental health department, sometimes challenging septic situations can be overcome.

For septic projects you are generally required to get various soil tests done to determine the quality AND quantity of “good” soil. In most of Metro- Atlanta a “Level 3” Soil Test is sufficient, but in Fulton County, GA you also have to have a good ol’ fashioned “Perk” test along with the “L3”. If the seller does not have a current soil test that is sufficient for your permitting requirements, BE SURE TO HAVE THESE TEST COMPLETED DURING DUE DILIGENCE!

ZONING

This determines things such as building setbacks, the types of structures that can exist on a property, and the size / height of structures that can exist on a property. A GREAT FREE resource for determining the specifics of zoning classifications in your area is municode.com If your area is not currently served by municode.com , Call your local building / planning / zoning office to get specifics on the zoning classifications AND to verify the zoning classification you “think” a property may be.

This project is located in unincorporated Dekalb County Georgia and is zoned R-100, a quick search on Municode for keyword "R-100" under Dekalb County, GA reveals the following:

This determines our "BUILD BOX" or the area of the lot we are allowed to build in. Our surveyor will also use this info to calculate lot coverage and floor area ratios that will determine how BIG a structure we can build.

Next Up... Survey SURPRISES!

 We'll get more into the specifics on the foundation and engineering in a later post, but SHORT version is this is a CMU "Concrete Block" foundation over concrete footer, engineer checks out integrity of existing foundation, floor system framing, and soil compaction. When we had final plan of "new" house, he calculated the new loads and determined where additional support was needed. We ended up needing to add 6 footings under the house for 9 new piers "3 are going on an existing wall" 

Thanks @Karen Margrave !  Anyone interested in checking out a MAJOR renovation,"Pop Top", Second Story addition follow along here!

Diary of a POP TOP Second Story Addition

@Jon Klaus Existing house is 3/1 @ 1394'   "NEW" house will be 4/3 @ 2,477'

We're looking at about 90 days to complete.

Ehhh...Boss...We need a BIGGER saw!

***** ALERT **** ALERT **** We interrupt this CAREFULLY scripted and “WELL” thought out thread to bring you BREAKING jobsite NEWS!!!

We STARTED “PRE-hab” on this project FRIDAY, and are already OVER budget!

We were planning on starting this at the end of next week, but our demo crew had an opening and we need to remove the back patio to make way for a footing for the expanded master bedroom.  

The additional footings for the 2nd story addition under the existing house don't require any prior demo, and we want to do all our concrete work at once to save on pump fees, so we jumped at the chance to get this patio out of the way.

What we thought was just a 4” slab over a CMU footer… And What we thought would take a couple guys a couple hours….

Turns out to be MUCH more involved! Seems like the original owners owned a concrete company, and the patio is essentially several layers of STEEL REINFORCED concrete!

So the call comes in for help. We had to rent a jackhammer and bigger concrete saw and it still took ALL day JUST to get enough of the patio out to pour the footer. We originally wanted to take out the whole patio, but short of blasting with dynamite, it would probably take all week to chip this sucker out!

So with tool rentals and extra man hours we’re about a $1,000 into this project and this is all we’ve accomplished….

This patio just "reinforces" the fact, that when remodeling...expect the unexpected! 

Time to get into the basement and mark some pier locations....

 How many do we need???  With @J Scott 's MAD Authoring skills, and my ability to "READY....FIRE...AIM" you should be able to start an ENTIRE subdomain of DONTDOTHATAGAIN.biggerpockets.com!

@Karen Margrave AWESOME idea with the JV "Joint Venture" angle! We have tried this several times, with several different sellers, in several different ways, but we have yet to "CONNECT" on a deal.

I always attribute the failure to the sellers lack of ability to see my GRAND VISION of how we would both end up BAJILLIONAIRES after the deal is complete, but any advice you could lend to close these kind of deals other than I need a padded room and some Tony Robbins tapes would be much appreciated!

@Dawn Anastasi If we kept the house a 3/1, just cleaned it up and put it on the market today we would be somewhere north of the 250k range. If we added a bath and some additional footage off the back of the house we could get into the 300s.

Since we are going to a 4/3, doubling the square footage, and doing some other stuff "raising the first floor ceilings to 9', all new mechanicals, new open layout ect. It will allow us to compete with new construction comps in the area which are 500-700k.

We are actually building a new construction house just down the street from this project which will be listed in the 700s

@Jon Klaus I'm feeling behind the times now... I may just have to hit up @J Scott for some more cash and get a variance to turn this into a 4 story!