Have You Built A House?
I am wanting to build some small, 1600 sq. ft., houses to keep as rentals.
I have been buying, rehabbing, and selling.
My wife has been handling all management for her father's rentals for years. I think we would have a good shot at doing it for ourselves also.
How can you beat getting paid five different ways every month by one property? (expense write-off, depreciation, appreciation, possitive cash flow, and equity build up)
I have never built a home, though know associates who have done so. I have heard some good stories, and other nightmarish stories. My advice would be to be careful
Good luck
I have 25 years as a carpenter,foreman on residental projects from 900-14,500 sq ft houses and can tell you stories from each end of the scale.And try to remember "there is no such thing as a dumb question" and its cheaper to do it right the first time.
Feel free to ask the easy and tough questions.
Mike
Hi Martman,
If its for rental then I suggest you go smaller. My rental homes and designs are 1200 - 1300 sf.
Reason being is that I can get the same amount for rent for a 3bd/2ba 1200 sf. home versus a 3br/2ba 1600 sf home......with alot more money in my pocket.
I have done larger homes from 1600 - 1800 sq ft as rentals but the market was smaller for those that can afford that size house.
Good luck
yup...I've built a lot both hired out and built with my own two hands plus develop subdivisions for single family homes as well as town homes.
Single family houses to hold as an income?. For the same amount of money why not build a duplex or triplex? This covers you during those wonderful times when a rental goes vacant. God I hate that. At least a partial income is coming in. I am a believer in really small houses. My best houses were really really small. 600 Sq.Ft. with a tiny loft bedroom A.Frame in the hills of Hollywood. Did one on a 20ft lot that was considered unbuildable. We designed and built a true hanging A frame house with an upstairs bedroom and www.bath.I built it with unemployed Actors and my strange cousin gave them Yoga lessons every lunch break. Can you imagine how I felt showing up around noon and finding a lot of semi skilled actors standing on their heads in front of the house? The lot cost $200 and the house was built for $9,000. You should have seen us at the raising of the A's. We had no crane so we did it with jury poles, right out of a medievel text book.
Recent sale of the house $358,000. The main water supply line for Hollywood about a 36 inch in dia. line ran on part of the lot. When we jackhammer'd out the garage on which sat the house we also encased that rather large water line. I think at the moment of pouring concrete we had everybody from the Building Department and Department of Water and Power, known localy as Dipsy, Waspy and Poopy in attendence. Now that was a rental. Masses of future movie stars and of course a few big time agents all broke into show business from behind those hallow'd walls. Oh god what stories could be told. A lady of the evening left her under garments and her little black customers book there one day. Now that was worth reading each customer had a rating and a list of prefered events. The people she serviced, everybody!. It was a Who's Who of Hollywood. We had a public burning of the book. Thats after I made a copy.
Cheers Lucius