Converting an empty barn into a five unit apartment building.

[Gregg Reinbold]

In 1992 I was negotiating the purchase of a 4,400 sq ft commercial building. The seller had recently retired and offered to include an adjacent lot with a second building for no cost if I could close within two months. I did close in time and ended up with the building I was originally interested in and a second “free” building. (The second building was originally a post and beam dairy barn that was later converted into a small feed store.)

Since I was couch surfing at the time I decided to convert part of the barn into a one bedroom apartment. I still had plenty of unused space in the barn. My dad and mom liked my apartment, so dad and I built a second one-bedroom apartment for them. Then I built third one-bedroom apartment and rented that to some college students. The fourth one-bedroom was built for some of my nephews. Finally I built a two bedroom apartment for myself after I got married. If you lost track the total is 4 one-bedroom apartments and 1 two-bedroom apartment.

Things that went great:

• 1.I gained experience framing, wiring, dry-walling, and plumbing, on five apartment units.
• 2.Several members of my family and I had a place to live for twenty years.
• 3.Maintaining the property over couple decades made me a better carpenter by exposing some minor things I could have built better the first time.

Things I wish I had done differently:

1.Lack of exit strategy during design of common areas. Because my parents and I lived in the same building I left approximately 1,100 sq ft open that both families could utilize. This common use area was great for us, but now I have huge space that I am not collecting rent on.

2.Not properly vetting my property manager. I deployed overseas four times and was not able to manage the apartment building effectively, so I hired a property manager when I worked as a contractor in Afghanistan. The manager never did back ground checks, so I ended up evicting 4 tenants the year I returned from Afghanistan. My goal was to have the apartments fully rented so that I could refinance them when I returned stateside.

My goal for the future:

1.My goal is to incorporate the common areas into additional bedrooms for the apartments.

a.1,100 sq ft of common area is unacceptable.

2.Combine two of the single bedroom apartments into one three bedroom apartment.

The local college built additional dorms, so more demand now for 2 and 3 bedroom apartments for families instead of one bedroom apartments for students. I ran a ghost ad for a three bedroom for rent and found strong demand.

My new design is 3 three bedroom and 1 two bedroom.

I will post some video next week on how I plan to convert the common areas into additional bedrooms. 

[Travis Fisher]

Awesome barn story!  But the best thing I learned from this post wasn't about the barn.  It was the ghost ad to test the water before putting out the money!  That's a fantastic idea and I'm trying it out today.