Wednesday, February 2, 2022

When all other means of communication fail, use words

 February 2, 2022

Confused...?

I remember one day someone asked me my thoughts on a matter. I looked at them with a blank face and thought, "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. I was waiting for my turn to talk." Who here can relate? There are a few of you nodding your heads. The rest of you are in denial. You know what they say, whoever "they" are, "90% of communicating is listening. The other half is talking." Or, something like that. Here, let me share a story Zig Ziglar often told when he was giving his speeches: 

A woman meets with an attorney and says “I want to divorce my husband!

“OK” the attorney responds, “let’s start with a few questions first.”

“Like what?” she asks.

“Well, do you have any grounds?”

“Yes, we have about 5 acres out in the country.”

“No, I mean do you have a grudge?”

“No, but we have a nice, wide carport and a storage shed.”

“Let me ask this a different way. Do you have any complaints about him?”

“Like what?”

“Well, does he beat you up?”

“No, I’m up at least an hour before him every day.”

“Well, what about your role here? Do you ever wake up grouchy?”

“No, when he’s in a bad mood I just let him sleep.”

Exasperated, the attorney finally asks, “Why exactly do you want to get a divorce?”

“Well,” she replies, “the guy just can’t communicate!”

Communication is a wonderful tool. 

As stated in my last blog, industry uses jargon. Multifamily is no different. Let's take a few moments and share terms used in multifamily, how they are used in single family transactions and what it means in simple English. 

Multifamily         Single Family                Meaning 

Retrade                 Renegotiate                   While under contract asking for a discount

Awarded               Offer accepted               Signed agreement to purchase a property

Broker                   Realtor                          The agent representing you and/or seller on your purchase

Single                    1 Bedroom                    Place has 1 bedroom

Double                   2 Bedroom                    Place has 2 bedrooms

Reposition             Remodel                        Basically to fix the property and make it nicer

Asset                      House                           The property being purchased; as in an apartment

Time for an update...

As we reposition the asset we were awarded by a broker where a retrade wasn't needed, we anticipate ... Ok, ok. I will stop with broker-speak. If it requires you to burn calories to understand the basics of what we are doing we lose you and are not getting the most important part of our message across. 

Hydrant

We have continuously run into issues with the dadgum water company, Liberty Water. They are incredibly difficult to work with and seem to not even know what they need for us to successfully hook up to the water supply for our sprinkler system. They said we need to get permission to access the easement where their water line is. Well? Guess what? They don't even have an easement recorded! Crazy! They then told us we need to create the easement for them, or something along those lines. Our stealth crew did some research and found another hydrant nearby we can tap into. Based on it's location we thought it was on the neighboring property as well. But no! It's on our property. And, the fire marshal gave us permission to move our water source to this other water line. That is great news! 

These changes have not delayed the project and we don't think they will. 

Follow the Green Line

In the image above we are moving the fire riser to another room on the north end of the property. It will go where the green line goes into the building. The red dot is where the hydrant is which is on our property. No easement needed. 

Fire Alarm Wiring

As long as we are talking fire suppression we may as well discuss the sounders we are installing. What are sounders? In plain English they are the noise makers which go off in case of a fire. There may even be some lights for the hearing impaired. The wiring is well underway for those. 

1-Bed Kitchen

The kitchen in some of the 1-bed units are almost ready for drywall. As soon as the inspector comes and approves the work to date we can add drywall, apply paint and then add the cabinets and flooring. 

Speaking of drywall, we are also ready to drywall some of the windows as soon as the inspector approves them. 

Insulated Windows

And, to keep in the picture theme, here is one of the plumbing for the kitchen in the studios. We will build a little soffit in the bathrooms to accommodate the water lines and the piping for the sink drain. 

Kitchen Plumbing

Based on the current information from the field, we should have the first units ready to be rented by the end of the month. This is fantastic news! Now, there can be some unforeseen delays. So, don't get too wound up if something here or there pops up. To date, the team has done a fantastic job to pivot and not let the surprises derail the train nor delay the train from leaving the station. So far so good!

And that is our project from my corner of the globe ~Bruce

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