All Forum Posts by: Ryan R.

I'd only invest that far away so long as I had a good property manager.

I can't give any good insight regarding investing in D.C or the college town, but personally I would prefer the college town.

In order to identify a good neighborhood, you need to become familiar with everything around it and how that affects real estate. I'd start with your target property and then recognize what your ideal tenant is looking for in a rental. Is there a gym close by that tenants will appreciate? What about a park or running trails, or shopping or restaurants?

How many for rent signs are in the area? If there are a lot, then demand is probably waning. How long are they vacant in between tenants? Do landlords drop the prices? You need to know these things in order to gauge the neighborhood.

The second estimate is way high. Call each trade yourself and get bids. Have them break down each of their costs; materials and labor. The more of these you get the better idea you will have of actual costs.

I like to separate their labor cost and divide that out to a daily rate for each trade. Then ask him if he really makes $400 a day on all his jobs..

Concerning the garage conversion. You need to know the cost to make it a 3 bedroom and how much that increases your ARV. If it costs $10,000 to convert the garage but only increases your ARV by $7,000 then don't do it. You also need to know how desirable garages are in your area.

Huntsville, Alabama. It's a great area to live and centrally located; Nashville, Chattanooga and Birmingham are only a couple hours drive.

To be more transparent, my increased waste was in large part due to having to tear out the second floor; which was about 600 sq feet. This meant the walls, the floors, the old floor joists and the ceilings below on the first floor had to be removed.

When you get into a full gut rehab, you WILL find problems hiding that you did not anticipate. Below is a picture of the first floor ceiling rafters that were also the second floor, floor joists. Yes they are 2x4s scabbed together over about a 12' span. I could not in good conscience leave this and cover it up, so I had to redo it all..

I recently gutted a 2,500 sq ft house and it filled up a 30 yard dumpster 5 times. Actually had the city garbage crane truck pick up 2 or 3 large piles of additional waste since then. It adds up quick.

@Account Closed There's an astronomical difference between Section 8 participants and FHA buyers.

There used to be a time when people were ashamed to take handouts. And don't attempt to lecture me about the unfortunate. I grew up elbow to elbow with the unfortunate.

Tenants would not suffer, landlords would stop receiving inflated rents that are subsidized by their fellow tax paying citizens money.

The majority of S8 housing is not in demand for anyone except those who are on S8. Take away S8 and the majority of landlords will have to lower rent to an amount that these same tenants can afford. The result of this would be a decrease in sales for Wheels/Rims/Car Stereo/Foot Locker retailers. Convenient store alochol, tobacoo and lottery sales would be significantly reduced. Robberies and theft would increase.

There would also be an increase in the minimum wage labor market, causing more competition between these workers, resulting in better customer service when you order a hamburger.

Many leveraged investors would become upside down on their S8 properties, it would get ugly for a couple years, but the world will not end because people stop taking money in the form of S8 from their fellow citizens to pay for things they should pay for themselves.

Yes, I've seen support beams like that. I live in Texas, where basements are rare, so I've never seen one 5" tall. But yes, bark and all is still on the tree and it looks solid.

I've personally been under houses that were built with cedar tree post as piers. Failed foundations on a couple of these homes were not due to pier failure in and of itself, but rather due to insufficient pier depth and or insufficient crawlspace height and venting.

Here's the question: How long has this tree been acting as a support member? And what is the condition of the foundation associated with it?

You can have a structural engineer come in and take a look at it. He's gonna perform a load calculation, take a look at the support to see if it's exhibiting any stress and then tell you that it's been functioning for 113 years and will probably continue to function for years to come. Then, to cover his rear, he'll tell you that his professional recommendation is to replace it with a new steel beam.

Wood beams are made from trees. So while it may look ugly compared to a milled beam, it's not out of the ordinary for an older home.

I grew up in a house with wooden piers for the foundation. The house was built around the same period. That house still looks good to this day and is still sitting on those trees.