All Forum Posts by: Timothy Fortin

Thanks Tyler I appreciate the insights very much!

Hey Bigger Pockets - I'm looking for some advice on how to provide comps to a hard money lender for 2 townhomes I'm building in New Hanover County, NC.  I've worked with this lender several times before, but always on single family new construction.

I'm building 2 town homes under a single roof, on a single parcel of land. The exit strategy is to sell each townhome individually, since each will have it's own legal description. When researching comps for ARV consideration I was looking at townhomes that sold individually, but shared a wall with a neighboring townhome, all under the same roof.

The issue is that the lender  is looking for comps for a duplex, where 2 units were packaged together and sold together, but no comps exist for that in this neighborhood since all townhomes are being built and sold individually. 

Is this confusion on the lenders part, given that they are headquartered in a different state (Pennsylvania I believe), and is a matter of semantics, or is this standard practice?  Would you try and steer the lender towards considering comps for individual townhomes?  If so, what would be your argument for that?

P.S. If my funding falls through because of this confusion, and you know of a hard money lender that funds townhouse projects like this please pass along a reference for me.

Thanks!

-Tim

These are great ideas, and it's nice to know I'm not alone.  Thank you for your reply!

Hey folks - I’m interested to hear how others have gotten past funding bottlenecks for new construction projects. 

I’ve had success with infill development, exiting through a sale at the end, but have reached a bottleneck in how many concurrent projects I can fund. 

My current strategy is to fund the projects with 85% LTC construction loans and cover the other 15% either with my own cash or tapping into a HELOC.

I know one option is to wade into the waters of private funding. What are some other ways to fund the 15% gap?

Look forward to hearing from y’all.

Thanks everybody I really appreciate all of your insight. 

While we’re here, does anyone have any references or recommendations for a third party company that offers cost segregation and form 3115 filing?

I really need some help understanding the bonus depreciation tax laws. I have an STR that was placed into service in 2022. Being a unwise, junior investor, I just claimed straight line depreciation for 2022 and 2023 taxes.

Is it possible to do a cost segregation study this year (2024) and retroactively take 100% bonus depreciation from that cost seg since the property was placed into service in 2022?  I've read a lot of posts about amending prior years tax returns, and filing a form 3115, but I'm still unclear on if it's possible to retroactively take 100% bonus depreciation. 

Thanks!

Residents of the sub division recorded the covenants in 2018, there is no HOA. Looks like there was a "ring leader" so to speak but attempts to make contact with him have been fruitless, according to online searches he no longer lives in the area.

Thanks Chris!  The lot was platted in 1967.  There is a separate covenant that basically states "one single family dwelling is permitted per lot", so that case of someone combining multiple lots and building multiple dwellings should be covered under that.  

Assuming your line of reasoning was the intent for the covenant I quoted, I'm not fully understanding how the covenant I quoted would prevent someone from "combining multiple lots for multiple properties", would you be able to elaborate?  

I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill here but this is a large investment for me. 

Hey folks, I'm looking for some help interpreting this covenant that applies to a 10,000 sqft lot in Brunswick County NC. There is no HOA, the covenants were drafted and signed by the residents of the subdivision, so there's no single source of truth I can consult on what the intent of the covenant is.

This is the covenant word for word: 

"There shall be no dwelling placed on or permitted to remain on any lots or lots where the lot contains less than 16,000 square feet.  However, an exception to this square footage restriction shall be given to any lot of record existing prior to January 24, 1977, as long as the current building setbacks can be met on said lot. "

What's strange about this covenant, is ALL of the lots in that subdivision were originally smaller than 16,000 square feet, according to the plat map dated 1967, so the exception seemingly omits ALL lots. I'm trying to understand the intent of the exception to make sure this can't be interpreted some other way that could prevent me from building a single family home on this lot.


I've spoken to a RE attorney, who also sought council from a title insurance company, and both feel that if anyone tried to file a suit against me for building a home on this 10,000 sqft lot, they would likely not have a case, but the RE attorney feels there's still some small risk that the covenant had some intention, that's not clear from the wording, that a resident of the subdivision could try to enforce.

The RE attorney's best guess at what the intention of the covenant is, is it would prevent anyone that combined lots to then break them back down to smaller than 16,000 sqft.

@Keith Dowdy I'm trying to operationalize my STR on Beech right now. Do you have any recommendations for cleaning services or property management? It looks like most places are asking for 30 - 40% in rental income for PM.

-Tim