<p>Boy, I am slowly getting very exhausted and I have a bad cold that I’m hoping I can get over soon.</p>
<p>After our weekend blitz, I had to pull my lead away from the project because I have had my office (formerly the Man Cave) at my house torn apart since July. My D is bringing her roomates home to visit this weekend and I figured I had better get my office off of the Dining Room table and all the boxes from the room stashed back. So, we have been working two days on finishing the office with kitchen cabinets that had to be cut down, installing countertops the way I want for my office and installing a very solid and heavy Murphy Bed contraption into the room. Everything is off the Dining Room table just in the nick of time.</p>
<p>But miraculously the guys made some good progress today, new photos are up at the group link. Hall Bath finished, just need the bathtub spout and shower spout put in. Everything is painted up and complete, including all doors. And he has put in some nice window trim around the interior windows. And the new master bath shower got ‘hot mopped’ for the shower pan. Tile will start on Friday morning.</p>
<p>Today we started installing kitchen cabinets. The uppers are done. I’ll take some pictures tomorrow.</p>
<p>Exhausted… got to go back into the new office/Lady Cave and get some wall plates installed on the new outlets and switches.</p>
<p>“She has listed every one of my properties and I just don’t know if it is ethical to tell her that I found my own buyer on this one, and cut her out of the transaction. I have not signed a listing agreement with her yet.”</p>
<p>Wait a minute, wait a minute…what? You haven’t signed a listing agreement with her yet? So basically, has she done anything whatsoever for you on this house yet? She hasn’t listed it for you…so why would you give her money if you sell the house yourself? What did I miss? She has had your business prior, and hopes to have your business afterwards. You are giving her plenty of money for her business, so why would you possibly feel guilty about giving her nothing, if she has not listed it?</p>
<p>She has already made plenty of money off of you doing most of the work and you just getting it listed on the MLS, which is the major benefit of having a listing agent. You are doing your own open houses too, sheesh! Don’t feel ONE BIT guilty about not using her services for this one, I think you are just in the habit of paying for an agent!</p>
<p>I think you also really need a LOT of sleep. Maybe take a day off and just sleep and recover</p>
<p>Yeah, I like that…I have my (expired) realtors license, never used it, that has to count for something, right?</p>
<p>You know, I had an experience about a commission that really opened my eyes. The house we’re in now, I saw on a realtors website online. The listing had expired a year earlier, but she still had it on there. I really should have just driven by and talked to the owners, but I contacted the agent. She talked to the owners, who agreed to sell the house to us. She ended up with a massive commission (over 25k) for doing almost nothing…and in the end, the entire deal became almost completely screwed up, because she was crazy. Everyone wanted the deal to go through desperately, the sellers, us, our agent…but she was crazy. The closing was delayed for three days because my lender was slow, and she was calling up my agent, saying she was going to charge us 1K/day for every day that we were late on closing. What??</p>
<p>Finally, the sellers contacted me directly, asking me plaintively, “We don’t understand, do you want to buy this house?” My answer, “Of course we do, we have already wired 375K down payment to the title company. Our loan company just is disorganized and can’t close on time. Happens all the time. Your agent is a nutcase!!” One idiot who had to do very little, almost dismantled the deal. I don’t like going through more people than I have to, as long as the other party is honorable and seems like they can be trusted.</p>
<p>Take some yin Chaio for your cold. I was getting a bad cold last weekend but was scheduled to go camping with D & her bf, on a weekend that broke records for rain.
I took it for a couple days & had a great time! ( even though it still hasn’t been dry enough to get everything dried out & put away).</p>
<p>^^You actually went camping on the weekend of record rainfall from Hell? Wow!! We weren’t here, but got videos of it sent to us…kind of like standing underneath a water faucet. How incredibly awful. You deserve to dry out for a long, long time. Honestly, I would have said forget the camping, and stay in a hotel!</p>
<p>Well, it’s now Thursday morning and I haven’t heard any more from the couple that was interested in the property for their elderly parents. So, that is probably not going to happen although I did tell them I wasn’t going to be finished for another 3 weeks.</p>
<p>However, I did have a discussion with my agent and told her that there was a small chance that I might get an offer from buyers who did not want to pay commission. She said she would be more than happy to handle the transaction with a small ‘consulting fee’. The fee would have to be paid outside of her brokerage with a payment to her privately. Her brokerage would not allow her to do a small flat fee. So she is very open to receiving a small flat payment and I could 1099 her so that I could write it off as an expense. </p>
<p>Things are so tough right now that she knows I need to do whatever I can to try to increase my profit off the deal. </p>
<p>On the other hand, she went to the local office to meet the local agents and discuss the property. Their concensus is that the property has to have a garage. I just have no way to rescue the existing garage, the roof has caved in and we dug around the foundation and it is not a valid foundation. Also, the old garage is only 1 foot from the neighbor’s property line and that is not allowed anymore. To build a garage I would have to submit plans, make it larger to current code, dig out a whole new foundation and move it 5 feet away from property line. Would cost somewhere around $15k-$20k and take about 3 weeks. A very big dilemma, I am not sure property can sell for an increased price to cover the cost of the garage.</p>
<p>P.S. I would never ever want to camp in pouring rain, would get cabin fever stuck inside a tent for 2 days. I’m not the a big camper anyways at my age.</p>
<p>Hey coralbook, I actually have a question about our garage that’s right on the property line similar to the one you’re taking down. A dream project of mine after we’ve fixed up some of the more essential problems would be to have the roof on our garage changed. Right now, it’s just a standard slanted roof with asphalt type shingles. It sits right near the back of our property with an amazing view over the valley and sunset to the west. Sadly, there’s just no room behind the garage to set up a table and chairs or anything of the sort to enjoy the view. I was thinking of trying to get the roof changed to flat roof we could actually use as living space. Would the permitting required for that have zero chance of going through because it’s right on the property line with our neighbors to the north? I’m asking because pretty much every contractor I wind up talking to just goes, “Why would you want to bother with a permit?”</p>
<p>Are you going to have just a roof top deck? Or do you want to add a 2nd story enclosed space? If roof top deck you should be fine.</p>
<p>But if you want to add 2nd storey, you could have issues that the foundation structure and existing roof structure of the garage will not support 2nd story structure and weight.</p>
<p>Also, as soon as you start building a second story neighbors will get involved because you could be blocking their view or light into their homes.</p>
<p>Regarding lot line, you are currently grandfathered in for your garage location. You should just call City Bldg dept somewhat anonymously and ask " I would like to expand my garage a bit (don’t be specific about 2nd story) but it is only X ft from property line, can I change it in current location?"</p>
<p>You may be OK because the setbacks are for Fire Dept access and your garage is way in the back of the property.</p>
<p>Just want to have a roof top deck. I figure I’d want something like a tile floor and would need a drainage system (or a tilt) to the roof. Have a 3’ railing or whatever would be required for safety’s sake.</p>
<p>I could see issues with existing structure of the garage not being able to support a roof like that. It’s currently one of those detached garages behind a breezeway where we never park the car. Just a wooden frame for the garage at the moment.</p>
<p>Good idea to just anonymously call the building department. I don’t think fire department access will be much of an issue as it’s on the back corner of our lot, and there’s just a steep drop off going down to a river wash behind.</p>
<p>Offer came in at 9k below asking price. I have to say yes as the net margin is over 50% after all expenses. It is time to look for another flip, as the the guy in the show says. </p>
<p>However, it will be a tough one in today’s market.</p>
<p>Yeah, you have an offer!!! And you’ve got a margin that is unheard of down here. Competitors are working off 7 1/2 % of purchase price after all costs are deducted.</p>
<p>Thanks to cb, your tip about the appliance prompted me to put in the contract;</p>
<p>Buyer supply all missing appliances</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I deserve that margin because i bought the place sight unseen and received a quit claim deed. And the bank wants to get rid of it because it has a 6’8" ceiling. It was i worked 6 mo to twist the arms of the county made it a legal duplex without lift the house.</p>
<p>In our town you can build where the existing garage was as long as you don’t make it any bigger. (I had one client get in trouble because they waited a long time between when the garage fell down and they got the insurance money, but it did get sorted out.) The only thing is a new garage that close to the property line has to be fire proof. I have no idea what would happen if you tried to change the roof a garage to a deck - they’d probably call it an expansion of a non-conforming use and make you get a variance from zoning and zoning would probably grant it.</p>