All Forum Posts by: Chanté Owens

@Mike C. And, to add on to what everyone else has mentioned. Since you are in a desirable locale; you being able to get your property rented out will be very quick in respect to turnaround.

I have a friend who rents a room in their apartment and gets $800-$1000 a month in the downtown Seattle area. They recently posted an ad, and filled the space in less than 48 hours. They rent the room for at min 3months - 6 months at a time.

Thank  you for your response! Oh heavens no! I know this is WAY outside of my current expertise! Yes, you have the synopsis down in respect to possible pricing, etc. My goal would be to get it under contract and flip it to another investor. I just wanted to see what information I needed to give to a potential investor, to show a. I did my due diligence on what the potential was for the investment and what they could be looking at in respect to the potential of the 2 plots to build on, and b. offer my assistance, if they needed it, in respect to GC recommendations, etc. 

Also, I do really like the idea you mentioned of seeing if they would allow me to be a part of the process, so I could learn the building part of this deal. THAT would be invaluable to me.

Ok, I know my limitations and as a first venture into RE investing, this isn't anything that I could do; however, I know of at least 3-4 investors that could potentially be interested in this; however, there is a tremendous amount of due diligence I would need to do, before I brought it to them to view.

Unfortunately, I saw this property about 6-8 weeks ago, and I looked it up, and saw that it was owned by what looked like an investment holding company of some sort. It appeared (mind you, I am still learning so I could be wrong on this) they paid around $209,000 for this property. I meant to contact one of my RE friends who is also an investor to see if this is something we could get under contract and possibly either she could purchase as a buy and hold or flip, or sell to someone else. Now, it's listed, so I missed my opportunity to make a offer before they listed it. From what I recalled when I looked everything up on the assessors website, the company who purchased it, had it for some time

The property info:

It is a house that I knew from first blush would DEFINITELY be a scrape and rebuild potential, as it looks wretched. Likely a down to studs thing (just from me viewing from the outside).

-Small property about 1200 sq ft or so (as I mentioned rough condition and would likely be torn down)

-Listed at 300k

-Lot area 20,000 sf ft

Here's where it gets interesting, and I need the help to figure out what an offer would look like. It appears that they have worked with the city where this property is listed, to re-establish two building lots. There is a wetlands issue that would need to be mitigated; however, there are now two parcels listed that the investor would have and could build on both of the parcels.

-Pricing for properties in this area and in the 1-2 mile radius are all over the place, but seem to comfortably rest in that $349,000-400,000 range for a decent 3bd/2bth property with age ranges of properties around the 1950's to 1970'ish range. Mind you, there are some properties that are much more expensive and there are some condos that are listed in the area around $155-190k'ish range (built around that 70's-80's range).

My question is how to determine how much it would cost to build to completely new properties, and how would those be comped out, as there doesn't appear to be a lot of new builds this area; however, I know of some new builds that are going up in the city next to it, which will be starting in the $450k range, and that's approximately 3-5 miles away; if that.

I appreciate any advice you may have. I'd love to be able to get an investor who'd want to build out both properties. I'd be able to assist in the project management, and I have access to quite a few good GC's and specialty artisans (ie, tile, roofers, etc) that could be subbed for the project; however, I don't know (personally) anything about new builds here in WA State.

Thanks for any input in advance!

@J Scott I completely understand and agree! 

BTW, I wasn't too far from you when I used to live in MD. Wish I was there for some delicious crab cakes! Although, Seattle does have good seafood here; there's NOTHING like the crab cakes at this little crab shack in Annapolis...sigh!

Hopefully once you all sell, you can treat yourselves to a celebratory dinner!

Kudos to ALL involved; that is AMAZING! Definitely can't wait to hear the numbers on this one.

@Tarl Yarber Oh, awesome! I am in that area frequently - Greenwood, Greenlake, Phinney, Fremont, etc. I sent you a PM. 

@Tarl Yarber and @Rory Boone Congrats to you both! I'll be excited to see your rehabbed completion. By the way, what area of Seattle is this located? 

@Dave Hurt That's AWESOME! Many kudos to you and wishing you much future success. 

"Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. When people can't do something themselves, they are going to tell you that you can't do it. You want something, go get it. Period."
~ Will Smith

Whenever I see this topic from investors questioning whether or not they should get insurance, or a particular kind of insurance, I think it's what @Fred Heller said, "Whether or not you buy it is up to you. Depends on your comfort level."

The reality is, it's up to YOU, whether you want to insure your investment against unknown disasters. If you are comfortable not insuring your investment that you paid, 30k, 50k, 100k, etc, for, and it has a loss that is thousands of dollars to repair OR, it's a total loss; then you eat those costs. Period. 

If you have the means to not insure a 50k property that has a loss one time for 10-15k of damages, and are comfortable eating those costs for repairs, then hey, that's the risk you are willing to gamble on, and if you are comfortable with that, then that's fine. Everybody is different, and there is no right or wrong answer - it's comfort level.

Obviously, because of the field I'm in, I do see the value of having insurance, but oftentimes investors may not feel that way if they have thin margins on a property, and are faced paying a large chunk of their profits for an insurance policy; especially in areas that have higher property premiums due to natural catastrophes, i.e., Florida.

The bottom line is whatever amount you are willing to lose dictates if you will get that policy or not.

Also, with all of that being said, an insurance policy will only pay out for a covered loss that's listed on your policy. Which means, if you have a loss that's not listed/covered on your policy then you would be responsible for paying for it. However, a lot of policies cover most of the incidents that cause the most damages; I'd say at least 80%.