All Forum Posts by: Pavel Sakurets

Thank you very much to all of you for providing the feedback about exterior elevations, we had only 4 people who provided the votes and so far the top choices are #4, #5, #7

I personally like #2 (by extending the garage to the right, making it double and extending the house above the garage and lowering the front stoop), then #1 and #4

#7 looks like a house that everybody else has built many times.

Would be very nice for other BPs to provide the feedback about their choices, so if you can, please do!

Thanks for the idea John, yes I can put garage from the back, but it will take a lot of rear yard space for the driveway, so I passed on this idea.

The lot is 50x130, front set back is 35', the depth of the house is 50', so it leaves only 45' for rear yard, which is little and if you add the driveway, it would be much less.

Plus I analyzed all houses that were sold in Edina since 1/1/13 that were built after 2000;

houses with attached garages at the front bit houses with detached garages 11:1 and all garages that are attached are from the front.

If your contract allows you to cancel it, contact them and tell them that you found another property that you are considering to purchase (and am sure, you have something that you would like to buy right now) and tell them if they don't execute the offer within 7 days, you would cancel.

I do it with some realtors because they try to shop your offer elsewhere and usually tell them if the offer is not accepted within 2 days, I cancel it. (this doesn't work with banks though, only with regular consumers).

It doesn't cost you anything, just a phone call or email and should speed things up.

They do whatever they want. 3-4 years ago one day before the closing of the house I was buying in St Paul (1 day before the closing, the listing agent called me and said that the other investor group came in town and bought 50 houses, even though the bank has execute the PA with me before). What can you do after you paid for the inspections, title work, spent your time? Sue them for breach? Not worth the hassle. Move on.

With the basement will be around 4300 sq ft.

High prices in Edina due to their schools and Edina Country club.

We bought this tear down for 250k

Address 5841 Abbott Ave S, Edina MN

Good idea about the shop in the back, but I'm limited to 30% lot coverage and the house is taking 29.9% already. Thanks for the tip for electrical charger in the garage, great idea!

It's not want I want, Karen, it's what will sell fast, I don't care what to build and my architect can design anything I want, I'm just deciding which front elevation to choose.

Made a decision on a 3 car ( looks like 2 car from the outside but tandem garage due to narrow lot size), thanks to BPs

PLEASE BPs who built houses in higher income communities, please vote which elevation you think will sell fast in Edina, MN

There are total of 8 elevations, elevation #2 can be extended for a 2 car garage to look symmetrical, all colors can be changed, it's just an idea of the front look/elevation.

Imagine that interior layout will be the same for all houses

In Mpls if it's residential construction and there are no zoning questions you can get the building permit for a new house the same day over the counter, that's why I love it!

In Edina, where I'm building, it takes 1.5 weeks.

We got the house under contract 2.5 weeks ago and got a survey done last week, only after we knew what was the exact lot size we could start designing the house.

See, it was published that the lot was 50' wide and if it's 50' wide or wider, the total sides setback is 12' and I could build 38' wide house.

If the lot was 49'11'', the total sides setback is only 10' and I could build a house 40' wide.

That's why I was not sure on elevations and the plan, because didn't know what size of the house I could build. 

You are right, Keith, normally people are looking for a payback for eei (energy efficient improvements payback within 7 years). Unfortunately there is nothing on the market right now except 95% furnaces and 15 seer ACs that would provide a greater payback.

I wanted to use exterior foam insulation for this project to remove the conduction heat loss through the studs to improve R value from R19 to R28, but now have second thoughts.

I built my house from SIPs, and did some other creative things to bit the code by 270%, but doubt that anybody would pay me more than 50K, even though I spent over 150k on these energy efficient improvements.

This is a picture of the house that I built, had over 5000 people touring through it during Parade of Homes in 2013

Chris, if I got it right, you mailed 1400 letters to absentee owners, right?

What was the response rate?

What kind of letters do you mail?

Who mails them?

Did you close on any property from this campaign?

It sounded that you had a lot of leads. Our response rate on letters is less than 2% and we mail at least 2000/month (used ALL service companies for yellow letters mentioned on BP).

From 2% of leads that we get, we only close 1 out of 20, so our closing ratio from the entire campaign is 0.1%