All Forum Posts by: Brady Morgan

Quote from @Nakia Raleigh:

Thanks for this question, I just purchased a lot with a tear down house on it but the lot is big enough for a multi family unit.  When you have new construction are you concerned with parking or do you let the tenant fend for themselves on the street?

Most areas will have parking requirements in the zoning, especially when it comes to multifamily. But even if its not required, I would always try to have at least 2 parking spots per unit. If nothing else, it makes it more desirable to the tenants.

 @Robert Shoffner:

Good question. My advice is to become familiar with pricing in your market and over time you will learn to recognize a good deal based on location, permitting requirements, and demand dynamics. In general though, I would not pay more than 20% of the finished value on the land. Around 10% and you are in a good spot. Obviously the lower you get that the better. But over 20% and it becomes quite difficult to profit, in my experience.

@Damien Davis There may be a reason you dont see a lot of 4-plexes. In my experience that either means there is something prohibitive in the zoning, or there simply is not much demand for that sort of product if most people either go with an apartment in a large complex or rent a SFR. Sometimes you dont have much of a middle ground depending on the demographics.

Build to rent is a great strategy if you are able to utilize some competitive advantages in your market.

To help you with running your own analysis I find it helps to use an example, so I will give an example from my own market. I can build a 4-plex, four two story units side by side, with a total of about 5000sf for about $1m, land included. This 4-plex will rent for around $2500 per unit and would have a finished value of about 1.3m. This of course can be scaled up as well for better profits, if you have a 1 acre lot, you can probably fit 2 buildings with 4 units each (depending on zoning requirements), or 4 buildings on 2 acres and so on. The 4-plex would produce around $1000/mo cash flow after financing, and that financing would recover your total build cost leaving you with no money in the deal at the end and an "infinite return" for CoC. This is of course an ideal scenario, and the goal for each build. Actual results vary a bit with each project.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of what a builder would look for in numbers for the market to make sense. Of course your specific return requirements will vary, so figure out what the numbers are for your market, analyze them to determine margins and decide if that is an appropriate return for the risk you are taking. Please feel free to reach out and ask questions if you have any! I plan to cover multifamily in future videos/streams on my yt channel so you can look for info there as well in the near future (Brady_Morgan).

Quote from @Devin James:

Quote from @Scott Mac:

Maybe the infrastructure, electrical grid, water sewer, pavement thickness on the roads, cannot handle the extra people in the area.

Can you cluster it and get them to approve retail zoning for strip malls and fast food?

We get traffic studies done to confirm that the roads can handle the potential traffic. The city also confirms if the utilities have capacity which they do.

Its a simple case of NIMBYs having a huge voice in this jurisdiction.

This happens just about everywhere.. Even way out in the middle of the moutains where I am. We have a development coming up for approval with the county adding over 100 units bordering our small town and you can bet everyone that lives in our town is upset about it. in the end though, the planning commissions in our area tend to follow the letter of the law so to speak, so if there is nothing in ordinance barring it, they will approve, generally. As someone who has served on a permitting board, I can tell you that a good relationship goes a long ways. If they know you, have spoken to you many times, and you have always been friendly with them, just explain your points, that there is no legal reason to deny your plans, and ask them what you can do to help get it approved. Be helpful not forceful. That almost always works in my experience and then you dont have the headaches of a battle. Unfortunately.. locals will still be upset either way.

The 8' doors are interesting.. dont get a lot of request for that other than front door. I may have to look into that more. Do you do that with 9' or 10'+ ceilings?

Most everything else you mentioned has been fairly standard on my builds since the beginning. The stone elevation can be expensive but will really move a house quickly with the added curb appeal.

Some things I like to add for not much extra cost.. Soft close on all cabinetry (think thats probably pretty standard in most areas now), dimmers on all light switches, mood lighting in kitchen, and cased windows rather than drywall returns.

Quote from @Andrew Joseph:

Quote from @Andrew Joseph:

Thank you Brady definitely something to consider. I'm not local but may be worth a trip and 1 week off clearing the lots if I can save some money. What's that YT channel called? 

 Just saw it in your bio.

Yeah sorry, tried to leave the link but for some reason it didnt work. Glad you found it though! Another thing I want to mention for getting rid of the trees and dirt, I often can get rid of most of it just by posting "free dirt and fire wood,  you haul away" on a local FB group or marketplace and ill just leave it out by the road.

I always rent an excavator and do it myself.. much cheaper than what the guys around here charge. Excavator rental will cost you $300-500/day, or about 1200/week usually. I have a video on yt here showing how to clear and grade with a mini excavator, forest lot on a slope. The size of the trees will typically determine the size of machine you need. I know a guy with a dump truck that I hire to haul everything off, he gives me a good rate. In all I end up saving maybe 20-40% on the job depending on how much I pay myself in labor. If you dont have time to do it yourself, you can usually rent the equipment and hire an operator hourly for less than what a full service company will charge you. Just gotta put some effort into finding the operator. A post on FB marketplace usually gets good repsonses where I am.

A deposit at the start of a build is normal, this usually pays for materials and labor to get started. I would be very concerned about someone holding the 50k deposit for finish work at the end.. What would stop him from just not coming back to finish once he gets the last payment from you? Makes himself an extra 50k for nothing. We always like to believe they wouldnt do that, but believe me, it happens, even when you dont expect it. Ask me how I know.

If funding is becoming problematic, then tell him to use that 50k, and when its 80-90% used up come back for another check. That will buy you some time to get more capital together, and you know that money will be used to perform the job.

With more risk comes more reward. But you should be able to target that upper demographic segment and still move a house in a few months if you are in the correct markets. For me at least, doubling my profit is well worth the extra two months of expenses on the market.

If you truly want to go the affordable route then you will want to more or less mimic the big builders, and make up for the smaller margins with volume and economies of scale. Thats why they usually build up to a dozen houses on one street all at the same time. Thats how it makes sense from a business perspective.