All Forum Posts by: Aksel A.

Greetings Experts,

Plz see the shared PDF 158 Tremon st Malden MA

There are tons of small issues that are not of concern.

Main issues we are concerned with:

- Basement column re-up

- Roof job

- Porch leveling

Please contact me directly for quotes.

Thanks

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have been waiting to drop this post to this warm community for a while, and it seems that now is the right time. I realize this is fairly long, so thanks for your reading.

I have been needing to buy a property for a long time as a first step for total financial independance using Real Estate investment the best possible vehicle.
However, I have been renting all along, so I figured I needed to buy a house for my family first before engaging further.

A few months ago, I have found this beautiful property at Malden, MA in a gorgeous location near the subway train. Here is old Zillow post http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile,...

The house was appraised around $408K, and I was able to get the purchase agreement for $325K
Repairs are fairly intensive for this relatively old house. They includes roofjob, raising/installing basement columns, etc. My ballpark estimate is around $50K. I plan to refine this number with the contractor.

Minimal facts about the house:
Baths: 1 full, 1 half
Lot: 7,405 sqft
Single Family
Built in 1920

Now here comes the interesting points:
- I initially planned to buy this house as a middle ground between 1st time home acquisition and investment. After 5 years, I would be either renting it for life, or just selling it.
- The house has a detached 2 floor storage unit that could very well be rehabilited into a studio or 1 bedroom. It's not big, but can very comfortably easily fit a person or 2 for rental purposes.
- I capitalized on completely renovating the storage unit to include water, electricity to make it a great habitation. I figured I could rent this storage unit to students or AirBnB tourists on a 1st come 1st served basis.

To my huge disappointment, when I called the Malden city clerk building operations and asked to get a permit to introduce electricity/water to the unit to make it habitable, I more-or-less got this answer:
- In this single family house location. For zoning purposes, it will not be allowed to build additional unit.
That's about it. No negotiation

After this shocker, I am now reconsidering whether I should even engage further, because the idea of rehabbing the storage unit to make it profitable was a key driver to purchase the property for myself.
I would appreciate if I could get sound advice from veteran professionals on the best thing to do:

- Could it be that I did not correctly phrase my inquiry to the clerk over the phone and he resorted to providing a generic one-size-fits-all answer that is not quite in line with what my plans are regarding my prospect property? Is it worth going in person to risk getting the same answer back? (25 miles from where I am)
- Should I consult with a prospect or an expert re-habber to let him determine what my options are? In other words, what are the best ways I can legally use to make the storage unit a profitable add-on rather than an undesirable burden? Maybe make it an office to rent? A musical studio? etc.
- Should I just rehab/flip the property, given the relatively generous discount price, and put it for sale right away? This would be a memorable 1st time experience, as long the numbers line up.

Please bear in mind that this is the 1st time I am engaging in house purchase, so many no-brainers may be worth re-iterating.

Bonus question that may or may not affect some of the above:
- The original seller has passed away the same say I signed the purchase agreement. Right now, I believe the house is on probate and the right to sell will be delivered to the heir accordingly. Is it worth trying to renegotiate the price at better deal?

Thanks a lot for your assistance.


Aksel

Greetings fellow members,

I first to thank the BP platform owners and community for providing the forum, tools and systems to help newcomers in the REI arena getting up to speed and moving along with their careers.

We are entrepreneurs from the Boston area with an international cosmopolitan background. The decision to open an account here and post our experience(s) was initially motivated by the upcoming major investment we are facing, and we wanted to share our experience.

As first time home buyers, the closing contract is imminently due (in the order of days). This would be our primary residence for at least a few years before moving on accordingly.

Mainly, we know this will be a challenge. We are talking about a centenarian house in a strategically privileged location (Malden, MA, near the orange line).

The main challenge we are facing has to do with the house support from the basement beams and columns.

- Slight tilt/landsliding in the front facing edge due to insufficient column support.This was evidenced by the marble test (rolling at accelerated speed toward the edges) and a few auto-closing doors. We plan to perform a solid steel column job.

- Similar to above, but regarding the kitchen porch. It is definitely not 100% horizontal, and the porch doors don't fully line with their enclosure. Not sure yet whether we should do a cement/foundation job for the porch or just re-do the porch entirely.

Our adventure here is going to allow us to go through the entire process of flipping/rehabbing our house, but... without ANY of the thorough experience that some veterans may have here. So we'll learn the hard hands-on way.

That said, the numbers do line up and the risks seem largely mitigated, so we are pretty confident this will be a good way to get into the business.

Looking forward to connect with you guys, thanks in advance and kinds regards,

Aksel