Sooo, the wife and I find this place for sale. It’s a historic commercial building located in a lovely and vibrant small downtown square. It has a loft apartment upstairs and a retail area downstairs. The zoning allows for residential or commercial. The asking price is reasonable and affordable for us. We want to purchase this building for use as a primary residence. We want to further update and upgrade the loft and extend the residence down into the back half of the first floor, halving the size of the potential retail space. We might use that retail space to open a small business of our own in the future. We do not want to be landlords so until we did open something of our own it would remain vacant. THIS WOULD NOT BE A RENTAL INCOME PRODUCING PROPERTY. We cannot purchase this property. Nobody will loan us the money for it. Yes, I have enough for a down payment and closing costs. I do not have 20% to put down, but more than enough so that if this were ANY other normal residential property we’d have been handed the keys by now. I also have good credit. None of that matters. This building apparently occupies some vague limbo zone between being a residential unit and a retail unit and, basically, nobody wants to touch it. At least not without 20% down and high interest, only then for up to 15 years. Basically, I’d need a commercial loan to purchase what we would like to be our primary residence.
SCREAM
sigh
It’s perfect. High ceilings, exposed brick, lots of character, SOOO much you could do with it. Plenty of space. Nifty coffee house right down the street, and a grocery store within easy walking distance. It’s pedestrian friendly, do you KNOW how hard it is to find a place like that in TN?
I know that people do this kind of thing, you see old buildings converted to homes and lofts all the time. Has any other doper attempted something like this and if so, how did you obtain financing?
Thanks for the link, maybe your google-fu is stronger than mine. Owner financing is not a possibility right now. Maybe if it stays on the market longer he’d reconsider but I doubt it. Thanks for the help.
Beyond securing financing, I can see a major conflict developing over this:
and this:
There are plenty of horror stories about the sort of people whose lives are consumed by the need to protect “historic” buildings and make life miserable for owners who want to make changes. Be sure the alterations you want will be approved by the powers that be.
There are some other things you’d better check out too. Are prop. taxes higher because it’s considereded a retail bldg? Same for insurance? Can you do the relmodeling you have planned? You should know these things before you start signing any papers, or making offers. A vist to the county planning and tax assessor’s offices are in order, as well as a couple of insurance brokers.
Now, while I describe it as ‘historic’ and it IS old… it has no real restrictions or historic zoning overlays that would prevent me from doing whatever I wanted. I looked into that quite thoroughly before I got into financing because of exactly what you describe. I almost wish there were draconin rules in place for rehab because I would have disregarded the whole idea instead of letting it really plant in my brain like it has.
Prop taxes were assessed at $607 last year. I kid you not. Now, Insurance might be more expensive than what I’m paying now but it shouldn’t be prohibitive… not in any flood area, city fire department close by, meets all codes per inspection. I just can’t get financed. That is my one and only problem.
