All Forum Posts by: Jake McKay

Just bought there. Candace Mau with city home collective knows that place backwards and forwards and was amazing to work with. 

@Jeremy Pace - It is a 100 year old building that was built and always used as a multi-family. Zoning had probably changed at some point to light manufacturing and it is surrounded by construction material distributors, napa auto parts, etc. Even if we went through the process to legalize it, it would still be deemed non-conforming. 

Just decided to avoid a multi-family deal that had lots of deferred maintenance and was priced well to allow for some good cash flow. It was not currently a legal 4-plex and was non-conforming use in an area zoned for light manufacturing. I spoke with the city planner and there was a process to show its history of use as a residential property to legalize it, but it would still be non-conforming. 

What issues have you experienced in making deals with non-conforming properties? Things that surfaced as I did some due diligence included varied levels of risk in: being able to get the property legalized, insuring the property, being able to refinance after the seller carried the note, appraisal issues, and dealing with the type of tenant attracted to such a property. 

I'm new at the game so any advice is helpful. Thanks!

Another possible real estate attorney could be Jim Blakesley, located in the Holladay/East Millcreek area. He has helped me out as I have gotten started.

Welcome to the area! I'm getting started as well. 

Wow! This is my first post and it just got me addicted to the BP forums. This has been very helpful. Thanks everybody. 

I am new to the REI arena and have been listening to BP podcasts and am starting to read books. I am continually shocked when I am listening to how low the purchase prices are that I am reading about - single family units under $50K, duplexes under $100K. It seems these prices are necessary to operate under the 1-2% rule, 50% rule, etc.

I'm in Utah and in areas I want to invest it seems a duplex costs 160-180 and rents for ~$700 per unit. The numbers don't seem to add up in the areas I'm looking. Do I need to look a bit farther away in different areas, do I need to stop looking at MLS for listings, or do I need to lower my standards? In Utah when I look at MLS listings the only area that seems to fit well for price is Ogden. Any locals with some advice for a rookie? Anybody for that matter.