All Forum Posts by: Lynn Currie

I have loans where the payments are made out of an "interest reserve." Basically this gives the appearance of no payments during construction. In reality, it's part of the loan and they take the payments out of it.

There are a zillion (okay maybe not a zillion, but a few) ways to structure this, but when I do it it's a simple partnership or joint venture. 

The owner of the land basically gets an equity stake that pays off when the home sells. I wouldn't pay at milestones, just at sale of the land. 

Assuming there is a construction loan, they lender will likely require the first lien on the land.

The advice I give everyone on these deals is to get a good lawyer and have it properly drawn up. I don't use a real estate lawyer for these things, I use a corporate lawyer who is experienced and both putting business deals together and unraveling them when they go wrong. 

Some hard money lenders do private money, where they take a part of the equity.

@Tristan Brenner

I use Co-Construct. You might want to check that out, too.

@Karen Margrave

The bulk of what I'm are two different products:

• 2 houses on one lot - one being in the 2200 sq. ft range, one being around 1100 sq. ft. 
• 1 house on a lot - I try to do these around 3300 sq. ft., this is usually dictated by lot size and land development code limitations, not what will sell.

In the past I've done a lot of clean, white and grey contemporary interiors. In the past year or so I've really been trying to step up my game and move a little more out of the box on design. In my market, I'm seeing an appreciation for this, so I'm embracing it. It took me some time to dive deep and recalibrate my design brain, but now I'm feeling it and having fun.

I'm really excited about a kitchen I'm designing right now. This is my inspiration photo:

Transitional Kitchen

Mine won't be exactly the same obviously, but I love, love, love this blue with the gold. I just hope my buyers love it as much as I do!!

RE: price on the gable

I'm not sure but I'd guess around $9-$10k? Maybe a little less? Since I do mostly new construction I'm terrible at pulling numbers for remodels out of the sky. 

@Karen Margrave

Everything you have planned is pretty much what I'd do. If you are planning to keep that house more "transitional," let me know. I'm working on a project and some of the ideas I'm implementing might work well on that project and all of the ideas can be executed on a reasonable budget.

@Karen Margrave

I just saw that your plan is to sell as VR, not VR yourself.

Again with the caveat that I don't know that particular market, in general I believe that there are a lot of people that buy VRs that want them remodeled, at least of the lipstick on a pig variety. VR owners aren't in the construction business, they're buy and hold investors. Add to that they might not live near the property, and trying to do something as simple as getting it painted is a difficult chore.

@Karen Margrave

Wow, this is new territory for you! This sounds like a fun project.

So my thoughts:

I don't know the area well (I mean, it's near the home of Deschutes beer, so there is that!) so I won't offer any input on VR viability or not. 

If I were keeping as a VR, I'd change flooring, open up kitchen (honestly, I might not even bother with that for a VR) but not add pantry (because in a VR people aren't there long and need less storage), paint everything, and then spend the money on furnishing it.

If I were going to sell it, I'd open it up and modernize the kitchen, add pantry, blow out master suite (including gables or shed roof), refinish the walls, paint in and out, upgrade light fixtures, etc. 

My priorities in order:

1. Kitchen - For the love of all is holy, priority #1 is opening that kitchen up and getting them a pantry.
2. Master - If second floor, sure, make that the master! But get rid of that post, please. ;) You could shed that roof or just add gables, which prevents some of the framing cost and might let you use roof budget elsewhere.
3. Paint
4. Flooring
5. All else

@Eric James

I think most people don't just randomly try to renegotiate - they're usually asking for concessions based on new or undisclosed information. In your case it's items that likely came back on the inspection report that are deficient (according to the report) and they want them in the pass category.

So to answer your question, I do not try to negotiate every property in my option period. I actually rarely go back to the seller and ask for a price adjustment. I usually prefer to have the current owner fix issues themselves. If they refuse, I will ask for them to pay for me to have the issues fixed. If they refuse, I determine if the property is still worth the offer price and make a decision based on that.