All Forum Posts by: Victor Menasce

Finding good people in Philadelphia is difficult. The smaller projects tend to attract poor quality people. There is so much work in Philly right now. Anyone who is good is busy, and those who aren't busy are not the ones you want. Get excellent references and make sure you control the funds for the purchase of materials and payment of subcontractors. I generally build about $5M of new construction each year in Philly (not huge). I've been burned by low bids. It's really important to have detailed specifications for the scope of work. That's the job of the architect. Hiring a good architect is one of the keys to getting good bids. Let me know if you need some introductions to good architects. My GC's would not do a small project.

Good luck. The property prices in the GTA don't favour investment for cash flow. The numbers don't make sense. As a general rule you want to get about 1% of the property value in rent per month. I haven't seen that in the GTA or Southern Ontario in decades.

Can you be a bit more specific on what you are looking for?

The tax lien auctions are published by the county in most areas. There are tons of resources available on the internet on how this happens for each jurisdiction. Do the research.

In most counties, that's a matter of public record. You can go to the county tax assessor's website and key in the address. It will provide the tax assessment for the property and the ownership. If the owner is a company in a jurisdiction that obscures the principals (e.g. Wyoming) it could be more difficult. 

Is the issue that they don't want to disrupt traffic? What if you propose to perform the cut between midnight and 6AM, and then cover the cut with a steel plate during daytime hours? Filling the cut and refinishing would happen again during nighttime hours. Worth a shot.

Lengthy vacancy in the area could be a problem. Seek areas where there is excess demand and a shortage of supply. More importantly, make sure the property generates enough in rent to cover regular monthly expenses,  replacement reserves, and unexpected repairs. Rentometer could give you a sense of the rental market landscape in the area. 

I'm currently building an 80 bed planned care community in Louisiana. It marries the economies of scale of a big box facility with the sensibilities and intimacy of the residential model. My partners include some of the core members of the RAL Academy. I was a guest on Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Radio Show" about a month ago talking about assisted living if you want to learn more. 

I'm actually at $550 per lot and have a plan to increase to $625. We are in Lake Charles, Louisiana and the park provides workforce housing for the tens of billions in natural gas and petro-chemical plants that are under construction over the next decade. I consider that you need at least 75-100 for the numbers to make sense. A small boutique park with 33 lots could work if you turn it into a senior independent living park, perhaps as a coop. But you really want to make sure you have low turnover and that all of the structures are resident owned. 

Let me put this in perspective. I just built a 200 unit park for $3.5M with revenues of over $100,000 per month. The infrastructure maintenance costs can be large and you still have a small park. Hardly worth the management overhead.