All Forum Posts by: Cory Smith

Are you flipping the land or not? If not, then you're probably looking to get the whole thing financed yourself, which is basically a question of "how do I scare up $60k?"

So I won't cover all the normal options of how youd solve that, like a HELOC or 401k draw or whatever.

My creative answer would be for the owner of the land to finance you at, say, 70% LTV.

If you can get them to provide you finance in terms of a mortgage with a lien (and a servicer, all that stuff...) you'll be in a position to acquire the land and the tax burden from them. 

Land doesn't move quickly and you're probably one of the more likely candidates to buy the land (neighbors always are). I would ask them if they'll put together a note with a lien and see how you go. 

Good luck.

Determine total rent roll.  This is gross income. From this everything subtracts. 

Determine total debt service, taxes, insurance. Take this from your gross income. 

Determine total obligations for servicing the building. This is trash, water, sewer, gas, etc. Take this out. 

If you have any money left over, which you should...you need to make allocations for repairs...this should probably be between 30% and 50% of your "take home". Sanity check this figure against the operating costs of the building. This would be for things like driveway repairs, tree trimming, tuckpointing of brick, roof and guttering, drainage and landscaping, toilets, heaters, A/C, stoves, windows, screens, etc. 

What's left, roughly, is yours. Now weigh that up vs the financial risk you're taking, and see if it's worth it. 

I made a quick calculator to help you out. Essentially, if keeping the same color, a gallon will cover 400 sq feet of wall space. This calculator asks you to provide the full wall dimension and then subtract anything you don't want to paint the same color as the walls: windows and doors. It will also allow you to account for walls that have a peak to them, so the peak is included in the square footage.

For multiple rooms, just copy/paste the Room 1 calculator down into a new row for room 2, 3 and so on...or you can copy the room 1 tab over and rename a room 2, room 3 tab...and then you could include pictures in each tab, and color chips and invoices...

Good luck.

Docs Sheet Calculator

-Cory

@Kyle Mitchell

Do you have a specific spreadsheet in mind that you'd like to build in a variance component?

I'm experienced with building these sorts of calculators. My background is engineering and I have built these reliably for my field.

Shoot me a PM and I'll see if I can help you out.

Are there buy and sell boards for these properties specifically?

I've managed to only find one that's for sale in my bi-state area after looking for some time. I would love to pass it on to another investor because it doesn't suit my needs.

I'm not sure what's the best way to find a buyer for this?

I am in support of your endeavor here, but I have a few questions. With your multi-family builds, are you hoping to command a slight rental premium due to the container house "novelty" or are you intending on being price competitive with comparable SqF rentals in the market? 

I overwhelmingly support alternative building methods, but there's generally a reason that they stay alternatives and never make it mainstream. Either their costs upfront outweigh the long term desirability of the designs (see geodesic dome houses or underground houses) or their costs are high due to the attractiveness of the designs (see post and beam or timberframe homes). Both of these examples are generally relegated to the well heeled homeowner due to the costs and individualized nature of the final product. This is somewhat the area that I see container homes typically falling into. 

If you're adventuring into an alternative in the attempts to make it mainstream, I'd give these a thought and make sure your payback is in line with the  long term desirability . Especially if you intended to build and market these as container homes and not "stick framed home replacements" if that makes any sense. 

Hello,

I'm a US citizen currently living abroad. Looking forward to being part of conversations around home buying and real estate business management. 

Have a good day. 

-Cory