All Forum Posts by: Vince Campbell

@Chris Seveney That's exactly what we were thinking. Just didn't know if we were being paranoid. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your feed back!

We are renovating a house in a really popular neighborhood in Indianapolis. We have a potential buyer we've been working with for that past couple of weeks.

They sent us an offer with 30 or so specific line items in 3 addendum documents. Our concern is all the items that are subject to buyers approval. We're worried they could only approve expensive items. However, they have given us no indication of that.

Also, they are requesting changes to windows and moving walls that we think would hurt our chances of resale if they back out for whatever reason.

Should we reject the offer and continue with the project? Or is there a way to protect us from them backing out of the deal?

@Bryan Devitt I thought it was zoned for single only. But you're right, a duplex would lower our loss. Our permit office is full of megalomaniacs who love to say no. Is there any other way besides calling them to find out what zoning allows?

@Mike Cumbie The land needs to be clear and graded to sell it seems which would cost approximately $15k-$20k to accomplish. I don't see anything else around the city that matches the condition the lot is right now so I'm assuming it would need to be in condition for someone to build on.

@Mike Cumbie The LLC owns 3 other rental houses and 1 rental house we're renovating now. And we paid cash for this house and cash for the stuff we've done to it so far so we can't foreclose or bankrupt it. We're in it about $100k total as of now. The comps in the area are going for around $100/sq ft and the immediate area have 2000ish sq ft houses

@Brian Pulaski The front porch was angled into the house so all the studs in the front were rotten where that was going on. Unfortunately we never took any pictures. We honestly thought it was only a 4 week set back and didn't think is was a big deal. I'd give $30k to go back in time lol

@Clint G. My investor turned his nose up at the modular idea for whatever reason. The land is probably worth around $15k or $25k. That would put us at a $115k loss so that's not an option obviously. I'm just trying to design a house that looses us as little as possible.

@Bryan Devitt It turns out we aren't zoned for multi family so a sfr is our only option without a big headache. Yea that's what it seems like. Were just trying to minimize the loss obviously.

@Steven Lowe Also the contractor isn't licensed in Indianapolis where the work was being done and was unfamiliar with Indianapolis permit process. We didn't think it was a big deal because he's a custom home builder in 3 other counties in Indiana for 25 or so years. He thought (and we thought) he was doing us a favor by telling us the foundation sucked and the right thing to do was tear it out and build a new one. In the other counties where he builds the inspector would have called him and told him to get the right permits before he continued. Indianapolis dropped the hammer on us.

@Steven Lowe the foundation was formed concrete and was cracked in about 18 or 19 different places. Most of them around where a massive tree was growing. When I started grinding the cracks to fill with crack filler, it was like grinding on a sand castle. And when they tore out the foundation, it went about 12 inches below grade and had 12 inch diameter rocks as footers. I think the house was built in the 1920's. And we never saw any rebar or anything to strengthen the concrete which is probably why there were so many cracks.