All Forum Posts by: Lana Lee

 My fha morgage is only 1100 right now. But also, how is North philly with multifamily homes. This is my first investment and I dont 100% know which area to go for.I kept doing all of this research but feel like i getting know where. I just want to house hack a multifamily for my first investment to get me started. 

My properties are in N. Philly so different neighborhood, but I have friends who bought a home in that area. Haven't done a lot of digging into the rents in that neighborhood, but I looked through the Zillow posted rents and thought $1400 looked reasonable

Hello, I have a potential deal I'm about to close on in Philadelphia PA. It is a multifamily  duplex in point breeze area for $210,000. The taxes on this property is about $1,800 a year. I would live in one unit, while renting the second unit for $1,400. After 1 year I could rent my unit for $1,200 bringing in $2,600 a month. I would obtain this property by using an fha loan with only 3.5% down. Would this be a good deal to move forward with. I am also a first time investor looking to house hack. 

@Cliff T. I tried to post the finished product. Links to the listings for both apartments. But @Trixie E. decided it was advertising and removed the post. I guess she thought you might see them and decide to move here from San Fran. But let me know if you'd like me to send them to you directly. 

Brewerytown. ARV is in the $650k range and rent roll should be around $55k-$60k

Looking for any advice you can provide on your opinion of what an upcoming rehab I have should cost.

The property is in Philadelphia, it’s a triplex with approximately 3200sf gross sf (including exterior walls). Basement and first 1st floor will be a 3/3 bilevel, 2nd floor 2/1, 3rd floor 2/1. This is a gut rehab. Any idea what something like this should run?

It’s also worth mentioning that we will be going with ductless mini splits for HVAC, will be adding one small balcony on the 2nd and 3rd floor, will need a sprinkler system, and the basement will have to be dugout 1-2 feet and are unsure yet if underpinning is needed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

@Jamir G. indeed, right now I am dealing with unpaid taxes and water/sewage bills that exceed $1200 dollars. They were supposed to be taken care of prior to the sale, and was told they were. But they weren't, the ball was dropped somewhere. So between that, my current tenant situation, and some inspection problems (unforeseen costs), it will be another month of vacancy on top of the added expenses. I thought I was in the clear with an easy renovation! These hiccups are to be expected though, im ok with it as long as im remaining positive and pro-active. Nothing good ever comes easy, words my father once told me, and words to live by. 

Since about April I have been dealing with my first eviction/renovation on one of my properties. For background purposes I’m a fairly new real estate investor. I bought my first rental 3 years out of college and then the next 2 about 2 years ago. Most recently I had to evict a tenant who inherited with a purchase because I caught her stealing water and electric. She denied it and stopped paying rent. FFWD to July I’m able to get her trifling a$$ out the house and assess the damages. My god were there ever so many damages. Not only damages due to the prior slumlord who owned the place, but damages from the tenant purposeful, her low hygienic upkeep.  So you all can imagine what I’ve been dealing with and yes there was a serious cockroach infestation. 

So anyway I had/have full fledge renovation on my hands. So I call around to everyone I know and could find to get quotes. Now I’m quite handy. I can do just about anything I put my mind to, but a full renovation was not something I had ever did nor wanted to do. I figured I would do some stuff and pay a contractor to do any major work I wasn’t familiar with, and that I thought shouldn't be done by a jack of all trades. Well that didn’t happen. 80% of the contractors didn’t call me back. The other 20% took their time and when the did show up they tried to rip me off.  So as a finance professional by day I know that time is money, and I had no time to continue losing money.

So of course I started the clean out demo process myself.  What a MISTAKE! Now mind you all I only have the weekends to work and I’m normally doing all the work myself. Sometimes a friend will pop in and give me a hand or like for the cleanout I was able to hire some cheap labor (I had refused to handle some of the tenants furniture). As I completed the cleanout/demo phase I realized I still did not havea contractor and decided well if no one wants my money, I’ll just do the sh1t myself. What a MISTAKE!  

The list of crap to be done is/was insurmountable for 1 handyman alone with only having time on the weekends to work. However, I took on the project anyway. I’ve always done things myself when they needed to be done and I guess I thought this was no different. Here I am 4 months later and ~$4k in I’ still not finished. Don’t get me wrong, the house has came a looooooong way since I began but it’s still not done. The budget is getting tighter and the weather is getting colder here in the Philadelphia area. As I progress in the property I understand more and more why some owners become jack legs or slum lords. The time, cost, materials, labor, and the issues just become overwhelming at times and you just get to the point of I just want it done. I dont care what it looks like as long as its functional it’s fine. I started out with a vision for this property but slowly dropped a lot of those ideas for budget purposes or just because I don’t care anymore. My main focus is only to get it to standard living condition to pass inspection by any means necessary. I just want it to be OVER!

My apologies for any grammatical errors above. I opted making correction.

I wish I could post pictures as well.