All Forum Posts by: Douglas Mallett

Quote from @Carl Dieckmann:

Can't we move this a little more towards tech? Any thoughts

If they refer to the couch as a davenport, then you are probably barking up the wrong tree.

Also... r/FirstWorldProblems

Quote from @Aaron Schrader:

Yes @Douglas Mallett with the EPA thing, I do wish sellers were more proactive and had some things ready on this- the property certainly LOOKS like it will have some lurking issues, but it would be nice to know before going under contract.  

Rare is the seller who will send you the SuperFund report on their parcel... lol?

Soil testing can be done during an inspection, though some markets do break this type of inspection out separately n the inspection addendum... a good broker in your area should know all of the specs for your area...

If it was a junkyard, gas station, wood treatment facility, transformer factory, etc, it will be contaminated. 

a few months ago, i saw a default notice laminated and ziptied to the fence of a large residential MF project in Kitsap county, so i looked it up.

22m dollar default!

Why?

EPA asked them for a soils test, and... the rest is BK history.

a shame as well - it was all waterfront!

you will want to ensure that the portion being sold is its own separate parcel - otherwise it will need to be platted, or assigned its own APN (assessors parcel number).

you can look this up on the county GIS mapping site - you can see how this parcel is divided, and also check on other important things, like adjacent parcel boundaries, easements, access, wetlands, streams or other critical areas that prevent full parcel development. 

it is likely that the 60k price for acres applies to flat, level, non-encumbered parcels that can be fully developed - you can easily check that out.

you can benefit from talking to some local stick builders or site developers as well, getting price info as well as some local market insights... they are usually very well informed and happy to talk to anyone who can help them get land...

all the best!

listing brokers must present your offer to the seller - and they will.

how the offers are received is another matter entirely.

you may have better luck sourcing prospective properties yourself and then having a broker submit your offers.

you will not find a broker more motivated than you to enrich yourself - ever.

!

you'll actually be asking other MF tenants for their PM, it's a great way to quickly find a good one... best of luck!

different investors have different criteria for their redlines - only you know what works for you.

anecdotal information may not be too helpful for you, even as it provides some small insights.

fix on your target - for price, for ROI, for ease of access/control, for tenant demographic, for all that matters to you.

fly up there and drive the streets - listen to the neighborhoods, watch the blocks. 

stay for a few days and get a feel for the place.

it's well worth the time.

all the best!

you can locate MF properties in those zips and ask the tenants for the manager's name, number and rep.

then call or show up and interview them yourself.

someone else's idea of well-rounded and competent may differ from yours quite a bit - this is why i always do my own vetting.

all the best!

for peace and quiet, tenant detonation is certainly one option...

it would probably work better than anything else, but it might very messy, and noisy as well.

if you can keep the blast radius mostly on their side of the duplex, it should be fine.

***

and...

really, any place you choose will be fine.

ask yourself where you want to be - you will live and invest there, not us!

In Seattle Magnolia/QA and most other areas, you will not find 2/3/4 MF, or even a decent SFR with an ADU for 800k... you will have to go far, far south for that, like Renton or Auburn.

Here are the assessor's tax valuations for SFR's in Magnolia and Queen Anne... this is interesting data, and you can see the tax values alone are more than 800k in most cases... just for SFRs. This data is just 1 week old...

All the best!

you can get a general idea of average duplex rents in your various districts by app or craigslist, etc, and then run your initial screens in your head as you look at listings - this is a quick way to initially parse your list.

someone else brought up a good point - finding an on-market plusflow MF in decent shape at a great price is... very challenging right now. 

in my market, as in almost every market right now, sellers are holding tight for many almost intractable reasons.

in this market - as likely in yours - the way deals are found is by scrubbing the underbrush - generating leads.

data works well for leadgen, and almost all of the data used by the various property platforms is actually free - courtesy of your local government.

it's easy to locate every single duplex in Travis county. 

and for each property record the assessor's office collects between 30-100 descriptors, such as asset class, sq footage, owner name, building grade, etc.

you can then perform some calcs on the dataset to extract owner occupied and owner occupied (if taxpayer_address == property address, then 'NOO', etc) and you can then append owner phone and email from commercial data brokers.

this is how most MLS listings hit the market in the first place - brokers calling homeowners and asking the impertinent question of the day... "Have you thought of selling your property this year?"

all the best!

_____

How short the human memory is!

In Japan, tsunami stones - standing in place for centuries - remind people of the 'real' high water mark.

"Build no houses below this point."

How many houses have been washed away in the centuries since?

Quite a few!

The voice inside my head is much, much smarter than I am.

Guess how many times I have learned this!

!