All Forum Posts by: Emilio Ramirez

What Bill said. My client is selling both sides separately. 

Not including the softcosts, I'm pricing a side by side duplex right now at $149/sf. Your numbers add up to about $145/sf so seems doable. My finishes are probably a bit higher than you're figuring, but my GC fee is significantly lower... probably time to revisit that :) It's in unicorporated jeffco so the county fees are insane... a lot higher than $10/sf. 33,500 on sewer/water tap each side alone!

Great job Bill!

GC only is still pretty vague. You could use all the structures I mentioned as a GC. Are you bidding plans and specs?  Then it's your cost plus overhead plus your markup. 

Is it more of a negotiated position? Are you providing preconstruction services? Then maybe you want to do cost plus a fee... or a guranteed maximum price.

Anyway you slice it you are going to have labor + materials + overhead + profit. How you structure it depends largely on your relationship with the client and their chosen project delivery method. Design-bid-build, design build, CM, CMAR, Cost plus a fee, T & M... etc. 

If you're asking what the typical markup is, I can tell you anywhere from 2%-40% or higher. :)  When I consider markup, I look at percentages, but ultimately I have to answer for myself, "What is the client willing to pay?" and "What is the minimum I'm willing to accept?"

First things to check.

1. Zoning. What is it? That will determine what you can build.

2. What's the exit strategy? Lease up and sell? Buy and hold?

3. Is it a known or suspected brownfield site?

4. Your existing taps are probably worthless. How many new bathrooms? This typically is charged as a relationship to "single family equivalent" which could be $5k for each.

5. What's your role in the project?

Lots of questions...

There are several ways you could structure this. 

1. Price it as a designer and price it as a General Contractor. Two separate contracts. Charge the retail price that they would purchase it for. Build the profit into your construction costs and get paid in normal draws as design and construction proceed. It's the benefit of pre selling a spec, but the headache of having the client on board from the beginning. 

2. Another way would be to finance the build your self with a purchase contract to close a set amount of days after C of O. Then they close on the property. (not sure about this if they own the land?)

3. Charge a straight fee for your services plus the cost of work.

4. You could do a design build contract.

There's lots of templates out there. I would start with the AIA and Construction DOCs series. You can get both for free to review as drafts. I personally think they are both too cumbersome for single family residential, but that's just my opinion. How transparent you want to be with your costs is up to you. 

Denver for example has all property owners listed under online services -> property maps. Navigate to the address and you will get name and mailing address. Most municipalities have similar services. 

Then you can send mailer or google name to try and find a phone number. I've had pretty good success finding phone numbers with this free method.

That's funny... I was going to create a post titled, "Keys to Finding Good Reliable Investors." 😆

Real Estate is so much about relationships. That extends to contractors. The second you look at them as a commodity, thats what you will get. Put your money where your mouth is. 

Would help to know why you need a contractor.  Are you building a multifamily or swapping out cabinets in a rental? Two extremely different contractors are needed for each situation and the varying degrees in between. Lots of posts on here about vetting contractors. Lots of good books to.

You need to crunch the numbers to see if it makes sense. Can the cost of design, permitting, insurance, construction, etc. be such that you can still cash flow with the rents your area can demand? (Assuming you're looking for positive cashflow)

I think it's a great idea, but you need to do your homework. 

1. Find the area you want to be in.

2. Check zoning that allows for duplexes.

3. Find a lot or scrape that is the right size and zonning.

4. Plug in the numbers and see if it pencils out.

That's a couple simple steps you can take to start your analysis.

New beams need to be designed by an engineer. I would ask how the beam was sized. Looks link a TJI, so maybe the truss company sized it? But I can't zoom into the pic from my phone or is it BP mobile site?