All Forum Posts by: Nik Moushon

If northern Cal is too expensive you need to be very selective on where you move to in WA or OR. There are some pretty decent extremes in each state when it comes to cost of living. OR is more expensive than WA (as an avg). 

OR is way more tenant friendly than WA. Seattle is way more tenant friendly than the rest of the state. Both states are more tenant friendly than most other states but do tenant to be a little bit more LL friendly than CA. 

Quote from @Eric Anderson:

Quote from @Nik Moushon:

Go to the county or city planning department. Give them the parcel number and they can look up when it was short platted. If it was recent then, yes there should've been an easement, if it was done a long time ago, then you are probably SOL. 

The county said they are going to have to talk with their lawyer because it should have never been sold that way.  Waiting to hear back.  Thank you for your help!

Make sure you find out if they APPROVED a short plat without one....because that makes it the counties fault as well. 

Either way it sounds like you will more than likely will need an lawyer to get this resolved if there isn't one. 

Go to the county or city planning department. Give them the parcel number and they can look up when it was short platted. If it was recent then, yes there should've been an easement, if it was done a long time ago, then you are probably SOL. 

Quote from @Jesse Lopez:

Quote from @Nik Moushon:

@Jesse Lopez First, stop talking to that "planner" you have. Anything over a 3 unit (some states 2 units) REQUIRES an architect. If that "planner" doesnt know that; they are an idiot that you dont need on your team. If they do, then they are just trying to play middle man and take more money from you. 

Second, go looking for a local-ish (depending on the size of your city) architecture firm that has experience doing MF. They will help figure out exactly what you can build there. Its clear that you don't understand the zoning code well enough to properly determine what you can build on your lot. Dont take that as an insult, zoning codes can be very difficult to understand. They can do a feasibility study for your site to help you determine your options for a small fee, before you actually pay for designs and construction documents.

Third, do not think that just because the zoning says you can have a max number of units per sf or per acre that your site can max that out. There are dozens of variable that will determine what you can fit on the site. At 8,000 sf I would think you could get only 3-4 units on there....and thats pushing it. This is why an architect will be able to help you understand and determine what you can fit. then you can run numbers and see if anything is worth building. 

 This is great advice, thank you! However, contacting an architect was our first step. The architect we spoke to advised us to work with a planner to get a design so that he would have something to work with.

Nonetheless, I will definitely take on your recommendation and start by reaching out to at least two other architects.

Thank you for your time and feedback! 

 An architect that doesnt want to deal with planning isnt an architect you want to work with. This isnt at a scale where that makes sense. Find another architect. The vast majority will want to have that control with the planning. Best of luck.

@Jesse Lopez First, stop talking to that "planner" you have. Anything over a 3 unit (some states 2 units) REQUIRES an architect. If that "planner" doesnt know that; they are an idiot that you dont need on your team. If they do, then they are just trying to play middle man and take more money from you. 

Second, go looking for a local-ish (depending on the size of your city) architecture firm that has experience doing MF. They will help figure out exactly what you can build there. Its clear that you don't understand the zoning code well enough to properly determine what you can build on your lot. Dont take that as an insult, zoning codes can be very difficult to understand. They can do a feasibility study for your site to help you determine your options for a small fee, before you actually pay for designs and construction documents.

Third, do not think that just because the zoning says you can have a max number of units per sf or per acre that your site can max that out. There are dozens of variable that will determine what you can fit on the site. At 8,000 sf I would think you could get only 3-4 units on there....and thats pushing it. This is why an architect will be able to help you understand and determine what you can fit. then you can run numbers and see if anything is worth building. 

@Kevin Koenig

As a fellow architect I have to say this with respect but..... you are opening yourself up to a hell of a lot of law suites and potentially putting your license on the line here. 

Without completely understanding a projects scope, the work thats already been done (be that design or construction), reasons behind decisions, etc etc you could very easily direct someone down a path that could be even worse than they are currently in. Unintentionally of course, but still...  Just getting past the legality of stepping over the architect of record for a project is a huge hurtle....not to mention the ethical reasons not to do it. 

If you stuck to just interpreting local zoning codes then you probably would be ok...but I wouldnt go into giving solutions for on going projects. That could get very messy and very risky, very quickly. I'm all for helping the little guy out, but you have to be careful to the amount of exposure you give yourself with these kinds of "quick answers". We are in a very law suite happy field of work to begin with....to expose yourself more...especially if its for such little returns. 

My suggestion, for using your license and experience, is to start looking at doing your own developments. New construction and at a scale that allows you to leverage your drawings as collateral....or at least save you money and time on not having to have to expense of hiring an architect. With your project management experience you could easily GC a project yourself. Just with those two costs cut out, you just shave an easy 20-30% off a project. With a buy-n-hold project that is massive cash flow. That is what I'm doing and see 50%+ returns. 

@Carl Polson @Steve Vaughan  Carl, meet ups are very informal and not on any regular basis...though I'm sure Steve wouldnt mind if we all started meeting up a bit more regularly. Its fun to catch up. 

Multi family is getting harder to make the number work unless you have some kind of built in equity to bring to the table (i.e. already own the land, contractor bringing his own crew, etc etc) at least for new build. Land, materials and labor are in short supply so prices are driven up. Its still doable, you just have to really make sure you know your numbers. Plus, big corps have already spread roots here so any big MF builds are coming from them for the most part. Lots of huge devs are planned in the next 5 years. 

Quote from @Lily Sellers:

Hi everyone! 

I'm getting ready to close on an SF rental property in Washington State & need some help understanding utility responsibilities. I've read that tenants can sign up & pay for their WSG, or the landlord can pay for those utilities, send the tenant a bill, and the tenant pays the landlord for the utilities used. I'd love to hear how everyone handles utilities with their tenants! Any helpful advice is appreciated :)

 As much as everyone will push you to keep your name out of the utilities it all depends on the utility company and their requirements. So just call your utility companies and find out what you have to do.

Where I am at in WA state, my PUD requires the landlord/owners name be on the account. Then the tenant comes in and places their name on it as well. They will setup the utilities just like normal and they will get the bill in their name. Yes, it does require me to pay in bills that dont get paid but there is no way around that. It does however prevent me from having to pay new connection fees every time I have a turn over and put the utilities back in my name for that week or two while I clean up the place or do repairs.

Quote from @John Barkenhagen:

@Nik Moushon @Steven Foster Wilson

Do you normally create a very detailed sketch for your contractors or are you creating sealed drawings that would go into the city for permits?

If it is the later, do you see a cost savings from the contractors?

 This is very project specific and even issue specific within a given project. i.e SKA for information/clarity or is it for a change that is boarder line a revision. 

With that said, I tend to go with as much information as possible. This leaves less up to the contractor to guess at and covers your butt when they dont follow the design. There is always the balancing act of giving enough information to do the job correctly but not so much that you control means and methods. Once you cross that line you start taking on more liability. There are circumstances that you do want to control M&M but that usually happens on very specific items that you already are planning on taking the extra liability on. 

Of course, the amount of liability you should be willing to take on will vary between if you are the architect for a client or an architect for your own project. 

@John Barkenhagen

10 years in the profession here and just about the finish up my testing. 

An architect that understands investing (even better if they invest themselves) is a huge asset to a team and is under rated IMO (i know, obviously a little bias haha). But what people dont seem to understand is that architects are not drafters. We dont just put lines on paper. We problem solvers and master coordinators....or at least should be. We coordinate just as many people as a GC does....different scales and different jobs but just as many. So with that coordination requires a tactful skill of dealing with people.

What people really miss that that you have a huge list of connections that most people will never get. Connections to other white collar professionals that most GC's dont even have. You'll even have a decent amount of blue collar professional connections as well. But where the connections really shine is when you go to dealing with the cities and jurisdictions. I dont know how many time I get a completely different tone of voice, willingness to help, and a meaningful effort of finding a solution that works once city officials find out I'm an architect and not just another random investor, local home owner or a GC. 

I think is the biggest missed opportunity in our profession though, is that we dont start enough investment/development projects as the Owner/Architect. So much time and money is saved when we dont have a client and GC combat us for changes and costs cutting "VE" items that almost never end up saving that much money. Getting to control the design based on how we want the end product to be used and interacted with, how it effects the environment and how it enhances the local community versus just getting as much profit as possible is something architects dream of for a client like that. But yet they seem to not even think twice that they could be their own dream client. 

I will say, that the architect value definitely scales up better with the size increase of the project. Hiring an architect for every little project is not necessarily got to be a value add. But, since you are, soon, going to be an architect you can start teaching yourself how you can better help your investor clients and learn how you can start investing yourself. Architects dream of changing the world for the better one building at a time. But they sit at their desks waiting for that multi-millionaire philanthropist to just walk in their door and never realize they can start making their own changes.