All Forum Posts by: Seth Borman

For clarification, state law allows ADUs for single family properties. It doesn't allow them for duplexes.

The underlying zoning doesn't matter. There are duplexes in R1 zones and single family in R2, legally, and ADUs can be located in any residential zone.

It does seem to matter for the appraisal, which is a completely separate issue.

I would call an engineering contractor and find out what things actually cost before I got excited about it.

I'm a huge proponent of the land value tax, but there are a few things that you need to understand about it.

The biggest is that you are taxing rent and that means you need to tax patents, government monopolies or licenses, frequencies, etc. Not just land rent. There isn't enough money there.

The next thing you have to understand is that some (not all) landlords will take a bath during the transition. So obviously they'll be against it. Construction workers, managers and developers would do much better. So don't expect a lot of positive feedback here.

If you want to use the LVT to get rid of a tax, the most obvious is property taxes and the second is sales taxes. Don't expect income taxes to go anywhere any time soon.

From my perspective you either have a rental that is worth more than the voucher, or the voucher is top of market rent. Either one works out for the landlord.

I don't think this translates well to US members because here we don't really do long term leases the way they do in the UK.

How long is the lease term?

 As I said above, I got the math wrong. But the point stands. Drywall is expensive.

The house I'm doing now has an 8' 4" ceiling, which means every wall has a 4" rip that has to be mudded and taped.

On new construction you can design with a 9' ceiling and use two 54" pieces of drywall to cut labor costs.

I am not sure I understand, the prices I had a quote were 40-50 per sheet labor incl materials (is it too high?). Here is how I calculate the room in your example: 

(10+12)*2*8+12*10=472 sq ft to cover in total

which is about 

14.75 sheets

in any case, do you think it is better to stick with old drywall? I have aluminum wire which I should rewire, it makes sense to open up the walls. what is your experience with city, can they delay the project a lot?

 Hah, yeah, I fat fingered the 8 when I meant to hit *. That added an order of magnitude to the math.

Same idea, though.

No idea about Austin but here in LA permits make everything really hard. Most people wouldn't pull them for something like this unless they got caught.

Drywall is not inexpensive. Home Depot will charge you something like $11 for a 4'x8' sheet of 1/2" drywall. You'll pay around $6 to hand, mud and tape. So you are at $17 for 32/SF or $0.53/SF. A room that is 10'x12' (a typical bedroom, for example) will be 1,642 SF. So figure $800. For one bedroom.

If you are doing permits you'll need to bring the plumbing, electrical and insulation up to code.

Probably easier to sand it down, skim it and move on. 

If it is a rental then this is an especially easy question.

 Yes, why do you ask?

 I'll be amazed if that house sells for less that $350,000.