We had a buyer come back for a third time on the Neighbor’s House this week as well as tons of calls and another new showing. Nothing in writing yet so we are still patiently waiting.
I got alot done this week on the Target House, with another day rental on the Bobcat but this time with the 2 foot auger attachment I drilled the holes for the 28 piers. The City of SA wants to see them 2 feet deep with #4 rebar at the bottom of each hole. I found a new engineer that came out and inspected the footings before the concrete pour. My old guy tried to raise his prices from 400 to 600 bucks for the inspection but the new guy’s price is only 350 so I am happy. The City of SA doesn’t inspect foundations for room additions anymore themselves, it’s up to the builder to supply his or her own engineers cerificate to satisfy that portion of the building permit.
After the footings were finished Friday I placed all the piers on Saturday so now I am all ready for the framers to come in and knock this puppy out. I used 12″ sonitubes for the piers but the City only calls for 8″. For the small extra cost I just think it provides for a way better product with the larger diameter piers so I always upgrade. We hand mixed 48 bags on 4000 psi concrete and poured them to the top. I’ll lay the 4×6 treated sills (beams) across the top next week before the framers get started. Stay tuned, we’ll be showing you some cool videos of the whole framing process soon!
With the use of a rented Bobcat this week I put a big dent in the backyard grading over at the Target House to get ready for the footings and piers on my new addition. My lot slopes up towards the back (again, 3rd house in a row) so I have to take away dirt in order to create space for the floor system and crawl space. The addition is 22 feet wide and goes back over 40 feet, I had to go down 3 feet deep on the driveway side so the finished subfloor is above driveway level. Additionally the plans incorporate 3 steps up into the master suite so the structure can stay above grade for drainage and ventilation issues.
I’ve learned that there’s always engineering involved on a project like this, its not as simple as just drawing up a floorplan. One of these days hopefully I’ll get to add onto a house where the backyard actually slopes down so there wont be any digging. A big dead pecan tree was also right in the way and had to go bye-bye. My plans are ready, permits pulled, as soon as I can get these piers finished we can frame up this new 800+ s.f. in no time and put the new roof on.
We had a really wet and dreary week but I still managed to squeak in some good showings at The Neighbor’s House and get started on the interior reframing of Target House.
I had initially wanted to jump straight into some work on the bobcat grading the backyard for the room addition but the weather just wasn’t on my side. It’s nice though to see the existing house all opened up and our floorplan changes really make the home modern and functional now.
It was a big deal for me to commit to not having arches throughout this project as I’ve become really attached to them as most of you know, but with the prominent existing built-in having a square cased out opening, the arches would have clashed majorly.
After framing up all the openings this week I am really feeling the square lines now, another good call from our architect, DeWitt. Our website is getting switched over to WordPress as we speak and will be a true blog and allow interaction with our visitors through RSS feeds, comments and also be way easier for me to do updates.
With a full work week and toddler it was getting really hard to keep up with our web updates so now this should make our (my wife’s) lives much easier. Stay tuned for the new site and more updates!
The Neighbor’s House is basically done now minus some small touch ups but we’ve been plagued with more bad weather so it’s dragging on. You can see the before and after is really dramatic and I am really looking forward to getting it on the market. I got an automatic driveway gate installed last week as well and boy is it sweet! This week I passed all my final inspections so all that’s left now is to have the gas company come out and install the new meter. Since the line will be underground I foresee a little touch up in the backyard after they are done. We’ll hopefully be staging the house at the end of this week and getting started shooting pictures for our marketing. One neighbor mentioned they want the house for 350k but I think we are going to test the waters a little higher for a few months since we are heading into the best time of year to sell a house. After all, it is a 2 on 1 so if we can find the right buyer that needs the extra apartment in the back then they’ll pay a premium for this house. I’ve spent all my time this week remodeling the rear unit with a full new “basic” kitchen, drywall patching, texture and complete interior paint. It’s really been a decrescendo to go from the cool main house to this garage apartment rehab but its all gotta be good. We have a lot of value here with this rear unit and its presence will be why we get a higher price yet still than we got for the house next door.
Last week our website was featured on Jim The Realtor’s blog, www.bubbleinfo.com. For those of you looking for a great housing market blog for San Diego, Jim Klinge’s is the best one out there. He brings you unbiased front line info on what’s happening in So Cal with no typical Realtor spin so we follow it religiously. He’s one of the top agents in S.D. and has also been featured on ABC Nightline and in the LA Times so getting a spotlight by him was really an honor. If you are looking for investment property in San Diego give him and his team a call.
We’ve been working closely with our architect also on plans for the Target House. We are doing some cool new things so I am really excited to get over there full time after our current house is on the market. There will be major floor plan changes since I gut the entire house and have that option. I am taking the front bedroom and opening up the space to add it onto the living room similar to what I did on Hat Trick. We’ve gone through several changes on the new addition but now I think I’ve got it nailed down as it includes all the things I wanted for our remodel: vaulted master suite with master bath, walk-in closet, food pantry, inside utility area, dual vanities, spa tub, shower, water closet and last but not least a double-sided fireplace between master bedroom and Jacuzzi tub! It’s going to be sick, can’t wait to frame this puppy up!
It was a crazy week now that we have two projects in progress. At “The Neighbor’s House” we are winding things up and are having the floors refinished while the concrete guys are pouring 1500 s.f. of driveway, 2 patios, an A/C pad and flatwork around the room addition. With all the mess over there I’ve now received disgruntled phone calls and threats of calling the cops about the workers having to stay so late finishing the concrete.
I feel like an unwanted houseguest that comes and stays at your house for a week. At first everyone is glad to see me, has remodeling questions and loves what I’m doing for the area, but add 3-4 months of random work trucks parked in front of their houses, mud everywhere in the street and a constant mess and noise and all of a sudden it’s not so cool and the animosity starts to set in. Understandable though, I’m sure it’s annoying.
It was really difficult to pour concrete this time because the cold weather delays drying time and the days are shorter now that it’s winter. They’ve had the forms and rebar down for almost 2 weeks and we keep getting days on end of misty cold rain. After finally having four trucks dump about 30 yards, the finishers ended up having to stay until midnight using lights…temps were in the low 40s and it wouldn’t dry fast enough to smooth.
That was a particularly bad night for neighbors, I hate having to do that. On the inside, the floors are coming out great as the crew has gone through 3 sanding stages, wood filler and a fine screening to smooth them out. The stain goes on today so I am anxious to see the extra dark walnut stain we’ll custom mix. Can’t wait until they are done so I can install appliances and then it’s down to the final stretch of small punch list stuff and I can get off this street, its time to go!
Over at “The Target House” we broke ground with the demo this week with the help of some day laborers and tore out the entire house in one day gutting every room completely down to the wood and removing both the kitchen and bath. Additionally there was a dilapidated garage and apartment in the backyard that took 2 more days to take down by hand.
I had planned to rent a Bobcat to knock it down but it ended up being cheaper to just pay the laborers to do it. Going through someone’s old personal stuff in a garage really lets you get to know them, weird. We found pictures of the house from Christmas 1991 in perfect condition, crazy how 20 years of deferred maintenance can take its toll. Now that the demo is done, the next step is I’ll have my foundation guy get started leveling the house.
Our architect is currently working on plans; I have some great ideas for totally changing the floor plan around as well as adding about 1000 s.f. onto the back of the house. We’ll do a walk through soon and show you how we are changing things around for the renovation. Several of the other interested parties who didn’t get the house have stopped by this week seeing the demo underway and inquiring about our plans.
We’ve been “targeting” this house for well over a year after finding it in one of our secondary farm areas. It’s not in our favorite Mahncke Park, but along the Broadway corridor closer to downtown, the River Walk Extension Project and the hot Pearl Brewery revitalization area. While it fits our overall financial investing criteria, additionally it also stays with our current model of taking historic houses close to town and turning them into better-than-new special homes for the young, hip and trendy urbanites. Over the past year we’ve sent numerous letters to the homeowner as well as left notes asking if they wanted to sell the house (see video). The elderly owner never wanted to sell the home and didn’t answer any of our correspondence but when he passed away a relative came into town and gave the listing to the first Realtor sign they saw which happened to be a few houses away. The listing agent had the home priced accordingly for its extremely poor condition but even at asking price in the high 130’s we knew it was a great deal.
After seeing it hit MLS late on Thursday night after I got home from work I called the listing agent and scheduled a showing for the next morning and had her write it up. You have to monitor MLS everyday to grab the good deals when they pop up, another day and this puppy would have gotten snagged. For anything in MLS we always write our own offers and take the 3% commission but for the $3900.00 we left on the table it was worth it to let the listing agent double-end the deal as from our experience it *somehow always increases your odds of getting an acceptance. After she wrote it up I pressed for her to present it to the sellers that very day which was Friday the 13th so we wouldn’t get into the weekend and have more offers come in. Our strategy worked and just as we received the signed contract evidently the rest of the city awoke to the offering and other agents were calling disgruntled because they didn’t have a shot. You snooze, you lose! The neighborhood that this house is in is very small so there’s not much turnover or recent sales comps. For as close to downtown as it is, it’s fairly stable and walk-able. All of the SOLD comps have an average price of 275k but go back to 2004. Average price for all ACTIVES now on the market, (only 3) is 335k. It’s only because we knew our area so well and have an accurate handle on what’s going on that we were able to jump so hard and fast. By looking at the numbers it’s going to pay off, stay tuned, as I’ll start the restoration after Christmas.
I got alot done this week on the Target House, with another day rental on the Bobcat but this time with the 2 foot auger attachment I drilled the holes for the 28 piers. The City of SA wants to see them 2 feet deep with #4 rebar at the bottom of each hole. I found a new engineer that came out and inspected the footings before the concrete pour. My old guy tried to raise his prices from 400 to 600 bucks for the inspection but the new guy’s price is only 350 so I am happy. The City of SA doesn’t inspect foundations for room additions anymore themselves, it’s up to the builder to supply his or her own engineers cerificate to satisfy that portion of the building permit.
