All Forum Posts by: Andrew Ramler

@Daria B.@Alberto Camacho Thank you all for your help, I spoke with Dallas CAD and they confirmed- one must be principal residence on January 1 of the tax year. 

@Alberto CamachoThank you! 

Thank you @Daria B., good thought on contacting the appraisal district. I will do just that and let you know what I find out for Dallas. 

@Account Closed, thanks for the response and the info on homestead. Just FYI, you can keep a primary mortgage(owner Occupied) if you turn it into a rental. I have done it multiple times and been total transparent with the mortgage companies. They currently live in the property and it is already homesteaded, the question is can the keep it if they move? 

If I currently own and live in a single family property that I have homesteaded and decide rent it and move into an apartment can I keep my SF house Homesteaded?

I am asking for a family member who lives in Dallas, Texas.

Thank you for your help!

Hey everyone!

Thanks for all the advice and thoughts. It's been almost 4 months since the crash and I have learned so much! We are still in constructions but very close to being done and I very happy to have this whole thing behind me. A few things I have learned below.

• If you are a house hacker you can still have renters insurance… well at least I did and they respected the policy which I maxed out.
• Require your tenants to have renter insurance… it’s so cheap and crazy to not have.
• I terminated my leases for obvious reasons. However I have already preleased all of them for over 50% more because the renovations I was able to do.
• Get a good attorney but do as much of the leg work as possible! Mine only put around 7 hours into my case and was worth every penny. That being said I had many people try to talk me into a contingent’s fee and that would have been a total waste as my claim was very large.
• I didn’t use a public adjuster and am happy I didn’t. However I am very hands on and in the construction industry so I was able to do that job myself.
• Document everything and send as much as you can to the insurance.
• Get letters from GCs, plumber, engineers, ect… Stating how much damage there is. If it’s possible to create a since of there being possible “unknown damage” that is yet to be discovered that can be of great value to you. The insurance is simply trying to mitigate their risk. Unknown=risk... That’s really important.
• My policy didn’t have loss of income and that didn’t really bother me. Even after my building being empty for 4 months, I don’t think I will pay the extra for it. It’s so unlikely you have something like this happen.
• I had 10K in ordinance, but at the end of the day that didn’t really matter because we settled on an arbitrary amount and I signed a general release.
• You don’t have to pay income tax on insurance money.

If you have a loss like this happen I cannot stress how important the following few months are. If you are creative and savvy there is a lot of money on the table to be had for improvements or even a new investment. It’s been an incredibly stressful situation and very hard and time consuming navigating the unknowns. However, in this situation I was able to leverage it to my advantage in a life changing way. 

Hello everyone, 

Just an update, after almost 3 month the insurance and I have come to an agreement. It's been a crazy learning experience!!! Below are a few things I have learned.

• If you have a mortgage on your property, they are going to want to be very involved in repairs. In my case my settlement was so large I am paying the mortgage off. I work for GC, and believe I can cut out some cost and hopefully be left with some $$$. This lead me to the next problem...
• The insurance holds back depreciation to basically keep you from having any left over money or making any money. In my cased they wanted to hold back 45k. I offered to sign a release in exchange for them to give me this money. This is a bit risky, but at that point I had all my bids(for work) in and had a big chuck left over just in case there are any surprises. 
• Everything is 100% negotiable. Never take the first offer. My final settlement is over 3 times their first offer. 

My hope is to be able to own the property cash and have it fully repaired at the end of the day. Now it's time to get to work putting my place back together. It's been a great learning experience so far and I look forward to continuing learning!

Ill keep you posted!

-AJ Ramler

Thanks everyone, I will keep you posted!

Thank you everyone for your help! They had auto insurance, a 25/50/25 policy.  I have an attorney helping me and will keep everyone updated. I have two more questions

My insurance is replacement cost but it looks like I may be under insured. Has anyone dealt with this before?

My insurance only covers 10k in Ordinance improvements(updating to code). Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thank you so much!

Hey everyone, 

If you are in Dallas, Texas you have likely seen my story on the news over the last two days. A car crashed straight into my building and the fire department speculated they were going 120MPH! Needless to say, it severely damaged the building. Luckily, the tenants are all okay. All three passengers did die. Considering the media has grabbed onto this event, I want to make sure to have all my bases covered. I have a few questions but also just looking for overall advice. See attached pictures. 

A few facts to help you fully understand the situation: 

• I live in the basement of the building (the 5th unit).
• The basement and the one other unit were damaged very badly
• The other 3 units are ok for the most part
• All the meters were pulled
• I do not have replacement cost insurance
• I have full coverage up to 310K (my estimated value of property) 
• loss of rent is not on my insurance

Questions-

• My tenants cannot currently live in the building. Should I terminate their leases? Do I need to pay for their logging?
• What red flags should I be looking for with insurance?
• Should I hire an insurance advocate? 
• Will the city require me to take the whole building to code?
• Should I hire an insurance contractor? Or will any quality contractor suffice? 

@Dmitri L.

Just as long as you are not with the city! haha. Keep in mind this was our (my wife and me) first deal and we knew just enough to be dangerous (can’t say much has changed). We bought the property as a fourplex and "house hacked" as owner occupants. However, there was a 2100 sf, half below grade basement. At one point it had been 2 other units (I know because the toilet holes where still there.). Being young, naive, and ambitious I decide I would stick a bathroom and kitchen in and move in the basement(Not much work or money, Right?). We had just graduated college and after the down payment we had almost no money left so the plan was to do the work myself. We closed in January 20th and I moved in on the 21st with a cot, space heater and handle of bourbon (my wife stayed with her folks until we got a bit further along). Trying to keep the story short, 6 month, 10k dollars, and what felt like a million trips to home depot the project was complete! We quickly realized it was too much space for just us and split it into an additional unit(an additional 5k) Being on a very tight budget required us to get REALLY creative on the renovations, I attached a few pictures of it in process and the end result( as you can see my wife is a kickass worker!)!

All in all it was a great first experience and I learned a ton! It's now a money making machine!