All Forum Posts by: Joseph Lee

Hey @Kurt Pauley, thanks for putting this together. My wife and I will both be there- we live just down the way over by the Riverview Theater.

Definitely breezed right over that part. Thanks, @Brian R.  

Have any of you moved to emailing and following up with the paper copy if the tenant desires? It doesn’t seem like this is explicitly disallowed and would be a much more convienent way to do it.

Also, @David Moore, why the property tax statements? I haven’t read anywhere that that is required. 

We actually went about it a little differently than most of the posters hear. We found some really good deals on closeout carpet at Menards and are paying an install company (Above the Rest out of Roseville) for our install.

Anyway, to the meat of your question, $0.65-$0.75 seems to be the going rate for install around here. We’re paying $6.50/sq yard for install of pad and carpet ($0.72/sq ft). Spend as much or as little as your desire on the carpet and pad. 

This won't add a lot to the conversation, but I'd agree with @Tim Swierczek on this one. We inherited a tenant when we bought our property and some aspects of the unit were in rough shape.  Outside of the cleanliness issue, which I think it's definitely fair for you to push the issue on, our take on it was that we agreed to buy the property in the condition that it was in when we viewed the unit.  You also have no proof of condition when they moved in, as others have said. Our tenant reasonably cleaned the unit and we gave her the full deposit back, so hopefully you can have the same outcome.

Good luck!

Hey @Jordan Moorhead, let me know if you do something similar in the future. Would have loved to had made it tonight, but have a family outing.

Hope it goes well!

Good point by @Tim Swierczek  

Tim- I don't want to derail the thread, but do you do 15% down for conventional non-first time multi-families? PM me if you do. 

Hey @Harry Sharp, here's a (maybe too early) welcome to the Twin Cities! It's all about what's most important to you, but I'd recommend coming out here for a visit and seeing if you like the feel of the city before you spend a bunch of time deciding if you'd want to move here for the REI opportunities (or wouldn't want to move here because the lack of). That being said, my wife and I love living here and the area has a ton to offer in terms of livability. More of a how-to-live-your-life comment, so take it with a grain of salt.

I'm in a similar situation as @Jordan Moorhead- currently house-hacking a duplex about 5-10 min from downtown Minneapolis, but different neighborhood. It's definitely do-able here. Although inventory is tight, you still are going to have an easier time finding a multi-family deal that cash-flows than a similarly performing SFH. Rents in MSP for SFH are relatively low when compared to purchase price. One note- I would plan on trying to do a conventional 5%-down first-time homebuyers program as opposed to an FHA loan. With how competitive it is here for most properties, I don't think many sellers are going to with an FHA offer when they have other options, which is usually the case right now. I can connect you with a contact who can do such a program if you'd like.

More of a public service announcement of sorts, but I wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts about this- I just read a story in the Star Tribune about the settlement of a class-action lawsuit involving tenants claiming a violation of fair housing laws when a developer bought an apartment building in Richfield and gentrified the property.

http://www.startribune.com/former-richfield-apartm...

Does anyone have any insight into the case? I'm assuming the lawsuit had some teeth considering they settled, and I think it's always smart to learn from others' mistakes.

Hey @Todd Dexheimer and @John Woodrich, thanks for the feedback. Old post, yes, but still an open item...haha. We've been dragging our feet on completing the finishing work (we're living in the unit right now, so we have the luxury of time), so we haven't had the building inspection yet.  The good news is that the drain is vented, and we're 1.5" to the T, so I'm hoping we don't have problems. My plan is to go into the building inspection as-is and if we get called on it, well, we'll approach it then.

John, you're 100% right in that we should have pulled a permit. Not to go off on too long a tangent, but I struggle with the fact that we're supposed to. We did pull a building permit and had an electrical permit pulled for the electrical work done in the kitchen, but didn't pull a plumbing permit, and I'll give you my reasoning for why- since it's a duplex in Mpls, even though we own the property and live in it, we're not able to pull any permits outside of a building permit. Everything else has to be pulled by a licensed contractor (with plumbers, they have to be licensed with the city, not just the state). The only plumbing work done was replacing the sink, so hooking up a new fixture and replacing the shoddy drain with a new PVC drain. Although it's the letter of the law, I still struggle with hiring a plumber for $300-$400 to pull a permit and simply hook up a drain and supply lines. Do either of you feel like this is just the cost of business and something that we need to do no matter how crazy it seems or something that we can get by with in small instances like this? If you're not willing to say something on a public forum about not following the law of the land in Minneapolis, I totally understand, but wanted to pose the question.