All Forum Posts by: Tris Wils

I moved out of the sf bay area (redwood city) two years ago, to Portland, but I've recently heard really good things about the ADU startup cottage. The site is cotta.ge. I looked into them for our adu but, like most of these companies, they only work in CA right now. maybe they're worth talking to also to get a bid?

I wish we had more startups/infrastructure here in Portland for adus. They're legal here too, and probably easier and cheaper to build than in california, but it's still a hugely expensive long process. If anybody has experience building an adu in PDX if love to hear from you! That's our next big project we're going to embark on. 

I'm also a real estate investor looking to buy in a year or so. Maybe add me to the list of interested investors! 

Hi all, I'm new to real estate investment but I'm excited to get started. I have one rental so far, and soon the home I'm living in now will become my second. I'm interested in trying my hand at a few things, like flipping or BRRR or even hard money lending.

specifically, with flipping and BRRR -- I struggle to understand how the math on those works here. I've now remodeled two homes, one in SW Portland and one in camas, washington. The Washington remodel was done in 2018. Purchase price 600k. Remodel was superficial, and cost around $150k for 3000 sqft, which is $50/sqft, for mid-high end finishes (that was not the most expensive bid I got). After the remodel we approached our realtor about selling, and she thought we'd lose 100k if we sold! The bank agreed. when we refinanced, they thought we had only raised the value by $50k. We decided not to sell and are renting it out now for $3200/mo. Not a very successful flip or successful BRRR. 😥

Second house, just this year, wound up costing closer to $100/sqft. It was more mid range quality finishes. But the remodel was also *mostly* superficial but some other issues came up (moving wall, plumbing, electrical). 

im wondering what a good "successful" flip or BRRR looks like here. I have seen a few flips come on the market, some seem to do really well, others seem to lose money. And I can't make any rhyme or reason of what the right formula looks like.

know an interior designer who just flipped his gorgeous 2500-ish sqft NE portland home for 1.5million. don't know what he put into it. it's a beautiful home, but was surprised he got so much for it, since it was a smaller home and half the square footage was in the basement! 

I watched a bigger pockets video where the guy says he bought a home for 200k, put 40k into it, refinanced 280k back out and rents for 2500/mo. Those numbers sound wayyy too good to be true! Anyone have #s like that in Portland?? 

I also hear a lot that you have to buy a home for the right price, but everything is so expensive. Even the "fixer uppers" are discounted maybe $30/sqft. What am I missing? 

any advice is welcome!!!

Old post but I am also in the Portland area looking into starting a tiny house community on a piece of raw land zoned manufactured home park. Just started the research process. Anyone have success with this?

Daniel, we could try to rent it out for events. Again, think McMansion, not sure who would even want to host an event there! But, if I were to do that, where do I start? What kind of person/professional do I reach out to to get my property on a list of event venues? 

Mike, preeetty sure it isn't that house. It's just a standard tacky McMansion that wasn't well built. I call it a 90s palace, my husband calls it a monstrosity. We did a search of the number of full sun 3+ acre flat/level lots close to downtown Portland and the list is small. Only a few lots that size go on sale every year and the majority are sloped or wooded. We would be ready to build in about 2-3 years and don't want to take the chance that when we're ready, we wouldn't find anything. We can afford to buy it and keep it empty but why not try to earn a few bucks off it in the meantime?

And as far as empty land goes, two acres raw land sells for the *same price* as three acres + a house! Plus our contractor told us having some of the home infrastructure there would save a little money (septic, driveway, electric). Plus this can at least be rented in the interim, which land can't as easily. And classifying it as a "remodel" makes permitting faster. Haven't made the final decision, but there are some compelling reasons to go with this one. 

Does anyone here have an idea how to make money out of a rental mansion? 

My husband and I are considering purchasing a home outside of Portland Oregon. We would be buying this house primarily for the 3 acre lot that it's on, the house has very little value to us. In a few years we would extensively remodel or tear down/rebuild. In the meantime, we wouldn't live there, and we don't want the house to sit empty. We are hoping to find a way to earn a money towards the mortgage. 

The house is a very tacky 9,000 square foot home.  The mortgage would be about 8k a month. Rentals in that area are more modest in size and top out around 3,000 a month. We understand it's likely will be losing money every month, even with it rented out, but we would like to maximize our rental profit. 

One idea we had was to rent individual bedrooms to students around $800 each. (The going rate for a bedroom.) We could probably make around 5K per month, but the vacancy rate might be higher than we expect.

The house is spacious, but not at all beautiful inside. Because we would be tearing it down we are not interested in sinking a lot of money into updating it right now. however, we would put up temporary walls or things like that if it could increase the rental income enough.

The backyard has a pool, vineyard, and tennis Court.

Thanks for any advice!