Livin' La Vida Luna y Luca
I love being a chauffeur for my kids. From pick-up and drop-off to bringing them to their extra-curricular activities.
The time I spend with them in the car reminds me of my dad letting me tag along with him to the bank, Home Depot, or wherever else he had to go for work throughout the day.
I grew up inside our family business. Like, we literally lived in it. I didn't get to spend time with my dad while he was tending to customers or managing his team, but if he had to run an errand, he always brought me along.
As I got older, he also always said yes to driving my friends and me around to the movies, bowling, etc.
I'm going to be like that. I have to be like that. I want to be like that.
Introducing Project Lorraine 🏠
We acquired this project through some good ol' fashioned bartering.
We dangled the listing agreement to sell Project Townsend to a few local realtors in exchange for bringing us our next project.
Project Lorraine showed up in our inbox a few days later.
Why I Like This Project:
- Permits In Hand Contingency
- We signed the purchase contract on 5/28/25
- We have approved construction permits in hand today
- We are closing on 12/16/25
- We've done this build before
- The plans are almost identical to Project Hillside
- New Market, Same Ol' Faces
- This is our first time building a house in this town, but the building department serves another town we're actively building in. So it's a place 🎵where everybody knows our naaaame🎵
- Sourced Off-Market + Below Market
- We're Under Contract at $775,000
- Zestimate is $882,300
- As-is Site Appraisal came in at $900,000
- Timing
- Closing on 12/16/25 with permits in hand should put us in a good spot to list pre-construction in the Spring and deliver in the Fall.
The Numbers:
Now let's quickly run through the numbers here.
Acquisition Costs:
Our total acquisition cost, including fees and prepaids, is lower than the Zestimate and As-Is Appraisal.
Cost To Build:
The gross livable space is just over 5,000sf.
Assuming a build cost of $150/sf, we're looking at spending just over $750,000 in labor and materials alone.
Our hard money lender just promoted us to their top-tier borrower status, and we're now getting the following terms on financing for new construction projects:
- 1% Origination
- 70% of Purchase
- 100% of Construction
- 9.5% Interest As-Drawn
If you're closing with better terms, please let me know.
Cost of Sale:
Don't say it...
Don't say it...
Don't. Say. It...
F^#% THIS NEW NJ MANSION TAX!!!!!
Ugh.
An additional 2% on a projected sales price of $2.1M comes out to $42,000.
The cost to sell a home in this price bracket is 8.5% of the sales price. Wild.
After Repair Value:
We originally projected a sales price of $1.995M.
The appraisal came in at $2.1M.
Our closest comp sold for $2.3M about a year ago.
Safe to say we have significant upside with protected downside on this one.
What's Next?
The only thing left to do now is close.
That's where you might come in. If you or anyone you know is interested in deploying capital against this project, hit reply and let me know.
✌🏽
What I'm Working On...
