Posts
230
Joined
7/30/2015
Location
CA
White_Trash
1/8/2018 4:40pm
1/8/2018 4:40pm
Bought a house last year, mortgage payments aren't quite so bad. It was a bit more than I originally planned to spend, only because I need a shop, and any properties on the market with a nice enough shop didn't have a house that was nice enough. So I bought this place with a decent house, and a nice sized garage that has a loft on it...
Turns out the garage has too many structural issues, due to a poor build by the previous owner (too cheap of a guy to do it right). It has to come down before the water damaged wall crumbles or all the siding blows away... The garage is maybe 10 years old. Also after reading the town by-law it doesn't meet code.
It's an old garage with a new garage added to it, sharing a "new" roof, the old garage pad was never brought up to the level of the new pad and is at grade, so concrete has to be added to make up for the 6" difference.
I spent a summer years ago framing houses, barns, garages etc, so I'm not afraid of doing the work, but I am just a one man crew... I'm sure I could convince a few buddies to come help lift walls if I pre-build them.
I priced out a garage "kit" from the local home center, everything for a finished garage was around $13,000. That's framing, siding, roof, drywall, doors, windows etc etc... I figure I can drop it to $10,000 by shopping around for used things like windows, doors, and I'll be re-using as much wood from the old garage as I can.
I called a contractor, and even with me doing all the interior finish work (electrical, insulation, walls etc) he quoted me $20,000 likely assuming I know nothing about the trade... Considering it's a 3 or 4 day job for a small crew of guys, the extra 10Gs is a bit hard to swallow.
My truck will be paid off within a year, freeing up $520/month, I plan to bring my line of credit down to zero as soon as I can after the truck is paid off... I want to do this the summer of 2019 as I'm in the military and I want to enjoy the new shop for a few years before I get posted.
How would you go about financing this? A buddy at work suggested I add it to my mortgage, which is fine with me, as it in turn increases the value of the house for when I go to sell. The garage is also the first part of bringing the rest of the property up to snuff (finally paving the monster driveway I have).
Turns out the garage has too many structural issues, due to a poor build by the previous owner (too cheap of a guy to do it right). It has to come down before the water damaged wall crumbles or all the siding blows away... The garage is maybe 10 years old. Also after reading the town by-law it doesn't meet code.
It's an old garage with a new garage added to it, sharing a "new" roof, the old garage pad was never brought up to the level of the new pad and is at grade, so concrete has to be added to make up for the 6" difference.
I spent a summer years ago framing houses, barns, garages etc, so I'm not afraid of doing the work, but I am just a one man crew... I'm sure I could convince a few buddies to come help lift walls if I pre-build them.
I priced out a garage "kit" from the local home center, everything for a finished garage was around $13,000. That's framing, siding, roof, drywall, doors, windows etc etc... I figure I can drop it to $10,000 by shopping around for used things like windows, doors, and I'll be re-using as much wood from the old garage as I can.
I called a contractor, and even with me doing all the interior finish work (electrical, insulation, walls etc) he quoted me $20,000 likely assuming I know nothing about the trade... Considering it's a 3 or 4 day job for a small crew of guys, the extra 10Gs is a bit hard to swallow.
My truck will be paid off within a year, freeing up $520/month, I plan to bring my line of credit down to zero as soon as I can after the truck is paid off... I want to do this the summer of 2019 as I'm in the military and I want to enjoy the new shop for a few years before I get posted.
How would you go about financing this? A buddy at work suggested I add it to my mortgage, which is fine with me, as it in turn increases the value of the house for when I go to sell. The garage is also the first part of bringing the rest of the property up to snuff (finally paving the monster driveway I have).
1) I would still have at least 15% equity in the property AFTER the new mtg. 20% if possible. This is your "Bail out at all costs" margin of safety.
2) Try to wrap it all into one loan and not a 2nd mortgage or HELOC with a separate payment.
3) Definitely look for a better interest rate than what you have now, so the refi will pay for itself eventually.
How long will you own this home? Will you keep it even if you get posted somewhere else, or sell and move? Can you get the new construction inspected and will it pass code? All things to consider.
To make lifting the walls easy do smaller sections and sheet them after you lift them up. For me the biggest issue will be setting the gable ends and trusses..this is when I will get some buddies over to help and probably rent a crane for a few hours.
Depending on how much equity you have in your house you could pull some cash from the house- this is easy and you can amortize it over a few years or many years.
Anyways, our plan is to pay as we go....might take me all summer but that’s ok.
I'll be here for hopefully another 10 years, but plan on 7. When I get posted, I will be selling, which is why I'm trying to get the outside looking better, I want to pave the driveway but I won't do that until the garage is finished... The yard was a lilac bush jungle (literally had no yard) but I spent all last year clearing it up and it's actually nice now, aside from this massive gravel driveway that has an extra parking spot in the front yard... They had a car, an F250, a 5th wheel trailer, a boat and a school bus that all fit on the driveway... We just have the truck and the car, the Trans-Am resides in the garage. The race trailer and the boat can sit off to the side of the driveway along the property line, doesn't need to be paved for them.
The Garage will pass code when finished, I've read our local requirements and I can meet everything needed... The garage as it is now doesn't meet code because the loft makes it too tall.
The garage is full of tools, power equipment, bikes, car etc etc, so doing a slow build isn't really possible. All of the riding stuff will be in the race trailer, the T/A will go in my tarp garage during the build, and any tools that aren't required to build the garage will go in the basement until finished.
I figure if I buy things like windows, garage door etc when I find deals over the next year or so, then I can just price out what it will cost to get the old floor brought up to level and for the materials to get the main structure up and enclosed... If that is under what my line of credit is, I can just finish up the inside as I go. Also, we have a military credit plan that local businesses take part in, I can get a loan of up to $5g interest free, and our local home store offers that program...
The Shop
Once this is out of the way, I'm going to put some serious money in to the mortgage to try and get rid of it.
Of course, all that goes out the window if the economy keeps going north like it has been. Your value may just keep climbing.
TM
I figured 15k was reasonable. I already have the electrical planned out, I just put in a new panel and breakers last year, I'll re-use all of that stuff and as much wire as possible. My only extra will be new LED lighting for the interior. To finish the inside of the garage, I'll be saving as much of my current chipboard that is on the walls now. The ceiling is pretty much already covered since I'll use what constitutes as the floor of my current loft... I'll be in to the interior for under 2g doing it myself.
I'll give that company a shout to see what kind of ballpark figure I can get. Even if I just put 1/3 of the price down, that really brings any payments down to being super affordable.
Plan is to paint all of my storage lockers and shelving Yamaha blue to sort of give it a theme.
I tell you, it will be nice to have a draft free, insulated, bright work space in there... It sucks working on the car in a dim, drafty, cold shop.
I'm saving the current siding and the floor joists to build a garden shed too... Won't cost me much to get all of the gardening and lawn care stuff out of the garage.
Boom - problem solved
Pit Row
that information. I'm not sure which entity it is, however, If they fail to find and disclose it to you it's on them.
It's worth exploring if you have to take the whole garage down. Here in CA, I helped my parents sell a house a few
years back. there was an unpermitted room addition. I recall the realtor telling me that if we didn't disclose that it
was unpermitted the information would be found out anyway through xyz. And if it wasn't found out through that search
the buyer could later come back to us for compensation if we knowingly sold it without divulging the info. However,
he said that if we didn't know (perhaps we bought it that way and the previous owner didn't tell us) and xzy didn't find out, that the buyer could later go back to (I thought he said title company but this is not the first time memory has failed me) xyz company for compensation as they were paid to find out all this info.
TM
Even a home inspector isn't a structural engineer so can't be expected to catch every issue. I also don't think they are going to advise to deeply on permitting issues as that becomes a legal issue & often requires digging into public records. Add to that there are often different rules/laws for contractors and homeowners doing work depending on area....
BTW, I'm starting to hear all the same radio commercials that were on back when the real estate bubble was about to pop: "Take cash out of your home's value!" "Refinance now!", etc.
For the floor...I regret having epoxy put down...if I had it to do again I would just stain and seal the concrete floor.
Once you begin...do it all and do it quickly and complete...dont drag it out...if it cost you a little more dough...get it done.
If you can get the 20k and add it to your mortgage...thats a no brainer.
A sealed concrete floor is not fun to step on to with ice and snow covered rubber boots. I'll leave it bare simply because I'm not here forever and I won't see any return on that. I don't let oil or chemicals hit the floor and if they do I immediately put down absorbent.
I would really like to make it a fancy shop, but that would be lost money here... The next place will hopefully have a tall shop for a vehicle lift etc.
We get snow twice a year.
My opinion was based on my situation.
Note to OP...You are from Canada, it snows a lot there, sealed concrete might not fit your needs.
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