All Forum Posts by: Hugh Ayles

I was going to post exactly what @Sean Pincus posted.

I think it depends on the neighborhood your house is in.

In the neighborhoods we have been in so far, surrounds are tile, so the prefab surround would not sell quickly here.

Most excavation companies are always looking for places to dispose of dirt (called haul off sometimes).

The risk you run is getting "dirty" fill.  It may have rock or other refuse in it.

You may want to check with your local municipality before filling in low spots on your property.

A formerly famous cyclist living in Austin did something similar (added fill around a creek that ran along his property) and faced fines.  I do not know what the final outcome was.

IIRC your're responsible from the tap in the street to your property. At least that is how commercial properties work.

I am also in a tight market. We buy from wholesalers and use HML and still get decent returns. For now we are acting as our own GC and doing some of the work ourselves.

You need to get a customer list and check references.  A referral from an acquaintence is best.

I lesrned that CPAs who cold call looking for new clients do not tend to work well in my experience.

Prepare for a rainy day.  In other words, the market may soften at some point in the future and it will be much easier on you if you have built up cssh reserves while the market is good.

Never take deals for the sake of taking deals though.  If the numbers do not meet your criteria, it is most likely not worth doing.

For me, I need to make $x/ deal with a secondary goal of $y/month.  If a deal does not meet those 2 goals, I need a very compelling reason to move forward such as the time invested is only a couple of weeks and I know the house will sell just as quickly.

@Heston Thomas

Welcome to Bigger Pockets.

Plenty of good places to camp near Austin.  My next venture is camping and mountain biking, probably at Colorado Bend. 

@Charles Rachal @Charlie DiLisio @Matt Clark

Thanks for the advice guys.  We measured the 40" width and stood as if we were using a 2 lav sink.

It was too tight for two people.  A 48" lav conflicts with the toilet.

Single sink it is.

@Aaron K

$4/sf is not nearly enough for a cold, dark shell.  Not including abatement I would guess more like $10-20/sf.

And count me as another vote that remediation will be required on this property.

Now for a positive example:

I was working with a regional hospital that bought a 500,000 sf former computer company plant/office for $1/sf. My role was estimating the various finish outs.

It was a huge win for the hospital.  They were able to parlay the property into office space and a joint venture research space with a university.  They also had significant land in the deal for other development.

You would need to know you have solid targeted tenants before proceeding.