All Forum Posts by: Chad Ballard

If I had such a letter I would be sure it was wet stamped by the engineer. The stamp would have his license number on it and you can look up his license standing with the state. Trust but verify.

Good advice above. Nothing beats hitting the ground in person and building relationships. There are a lot of things to consider and I personally would not leave it up to someone else just because there are many details. Another thing to consider is that you do not necessarily have to build to add value with raw land.

So if you have a large unit complex and you have more of one race, religion, etc. than another a potential minority tenant can sue that you are discriminating even though you have no idea what the race, religion, etc. makeup of your tenant base is because you do not keep those types of records (ie. ask on application) because that in itself could be a basis of a discrimination lawsuit. Intent is no longer needed to base your suit rather statistics?

I second talking to civil engineer's in the area.  You would be surprised the developers might not need to be as big as you would think to take on a larger project. Also might look into reaching out to land surveyors, architects and contractors.

I have always seen them caught with live traps with fruit as the bait.  Seal up your attic in the meantime.  He got in there somewhere.

What does you lease say about terminating the lease early?  Can the other tenant qualify on their own by your criteria (income 3x rent, etc)?

Think like a motivated seller.  Call any bandit signs you see.  Google "sell house fast cash" with your location and start calling.  I am sure you will have to weed through a few to get the ones that are actually doing deals but that is what I would do.

Not a lot you can do if the city will not approve a zone change.  You do not have any interest in a residential builder?  Price will be lower but that is the case without the zone change.

@Steve Babiak, exactly.  The only one who really contributed new ideas to improve the association was a software entrepreneur who was a higher up owner in a company the sold a few years ago for almost $2 billion.  He understood the workings of the "reactor" too bad he only attended a few meetings then left the board would have liked to have gotten to know him better.

I served on a board at a condo that we own ( and still own but rent out).  What a pain to get anything done.  I remember two meetings we spent the entire time debating wither we should buy a $500 TV or $750 TV for the clubhouse.  We had an annual operating budget of over $300k and our water bill each year was more than $30k but we spend all our time worrying about the small stuff.  Learned a lot but that was because there was another more experienced investor on the board.  He ended up being replaced because he stopped showing up for meetings because they were wasting time.

There are now FHA requirements that you cannot have more than 50% or your units as rentals. This was a bug issue for the homeowners worried about selling eventually. Not surprising that boards are adopting rules for more control.