All Forum Posts by: Todd Whiddon

Suvir- 

The decks themselves don't necessarily add directly to the sales price... but they are part of the "package" that I felt was required to sell this home.   Since we built the house on the side of a cliff, the back yard SUCKS!   So to help make up for the lack of a nice flat backyard, we thought it best to create an OUTDOOR ENTERTAINMENT OASIS of gargantuan proportions with the decks.

Same thought that went into the deck on our last POPTOP / FOUNDATION UP NEW BUILD the backyard was abit tight, so we went overboard on the back deck.

Also same thought in another house we just got under contract today WOOHOO!, the worse the backyard the BETTER the deck!

LOL... Come to think of it we actually just SOLD another house today "Today was a GREAT DAY!" and it had pretty epic decks as well, even though it had a nice backyard!

Am I spending too much on decks.... Probably    But they seem to be helping to sell houses and that's all I really care about!

Neighborhood Drive Around

Here's a quick drive around video I shot today so y'all can get a sense of the neighborhood activity and how the old mixes with the new!  Most of the older homes in this area are about 1,000 sq ft give or take, but the school system is REALLY desirable and families want to move in but need bigger homes. Also it's close to some of the hotspots of Atlanta like Decatur, Brookhaven and Buckhead, but it's in unincorporated Dekalb county so the taxes are abit lower.

@J Scott is nicer than I am.... I was gonna have @Sheryl Gurvey, @Rick Baggenstoss, and @Matt Wood all test their Decatur-ish knowledge and guess the street from the above video.    But here's a hint for Sheryl.... The street starts with a "B" :)

FINISHING TOUCH

Here's a look at most of the finishes we used, I was a bum and forgot to order some of the lighting in time so we had to pick In-stock alternates, but you get the idea!

Thanks again to @Justin Childers for the great design work!

WOW! Looks like we made the Bigger Pockets Success Story Spotlight for this week! Not sure who is in charge of picking those out, but you have EXCELLENT taste and Thank You!!

And Welcome to all the BP Newlsetter readers who otherwise would have had much more entertaining and informative threads to read! Thanks for checking out our project!

The sooner the better with both, if your confident you going to close, go ahead and send the P&S ASAP so they can pull title and get to work on any problems that may exist. Once you get your assignment, send it on over as well so they can draw up closing paperwork accordingly.

Biggest thing you DON"T want to do is have your attorney / title company pull a bunch of titles you are NOT closing on, costs them and eventually you money.

 Thanks RIck!  Being in this business without "Rolling with the Punches" is a recipe for an early heart attack!!   

Your spot on separating the typical "landscape package" with extra sitework, @J Scott is much better about tracking that kinda thing, I get pretty lazy on rehabs and just dump everything in one big pile since they are kind of one off projects, but on our new construction I separate out "sticks and bricks" and "development / community costs" so that I know how much it is to build "The Ashville Plan House", but depending on which lot I build it on the total project cost will differ. Here's an example of how I break it out on new builds....still refining the breakdowns and categories as I go.

 Also for @Larry Turowskis question.

Here is a quick CMA for this EXACT "Neighborhood", although since it is intown Atlanta, the "neighborhood" goes more by school district than what would be considered a traditional swim/tennis "neighborhood" in the suburbs.

As you can see there are older homes trading as older homes, older homes being remodeled, and old homes being scraped and rebuilt. Pretty typical for desirable school districts inside 285 on the northern end of ATL.

Here is a CMA for this school district Sagamore Hills Elementary and Lakeside Highschool. I should probably add some kinda disclaimer on this post that I'm a Licensed Real Estate Agent and everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt and/or shot of Tequila, and that all ideas, values, blah, blah, blah are my own opinion henceforth therein etcetera...

As you can see LOTS of activity over the last 6 months! We are playing at the top end of the market, even pushing ARV per square foot abit... But as @Terry Burger says... That's just what we do!

I'll try and do a "drive around" video of the neighborhood sometime this week so everyone can get a feel for the activity going on and the OLD mixed with the NEW.

 I missed the first part of this!  We're waiting for the Open bar at the open house to find out!

 Like J said...there are several RIGHT ways to setup and run quickbooks, but going with whatever YOUR CPA likes is best.  Also it's easier to ask how to do/classify something up front if your unsure than have to go back at the end of the year on several hundred entries changing something!!

I have gone back and forth between the online version and desktop version several times over the years... and ALWAYS come back to the desktop version. We run several different entities and desktop allows that while online version you have to pay a different subscription for EACH company you have.  Also the online version hasn't quite caught up with the desktop version in terms of all the features.

Printing reports to a dropbox file works pretty well for communicating with investors, that way if you work with multiple investors, Investor A doesn't have access to stuff Investor B is invested in ect.

Thanks again for everyone's compliments on this project!  Just wrapped up a higher end New Construction house on the Northern Side of GA / Atlanta as well, check it out Here.