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wongga

Welcome investors this is Garret Wong your host of the investing to win podcast so have some exciting guests coming up in the very near future but I wanted to give you a bit of an update Maybe you're not following social media. But I am attempting to do my very first secondary suite now that doesn't mean that you know we haven't done tons of burrs and other things but specifically a secondary suite The only experience I have is seeing it done by our clients now. Let me. Preface that by saying you know I'm going to sprinkle this in over the next six months because that is the project timeline I'll probably call this an intro to the project. Maybe I'll do a progress in a few months and then I'll wrap it up at the end but I thought the audience might want. To kind of follow along because it is quite a specific process. There's lots to learn. Um, and maybe you might want to attempt this on your own or with your contractor based on what you hear me giving out in the podcast. So let's let's get started so the property itself. Um, we brought a property um gee I think we took possession maybe two weeks ago so let's let's back up maybe six six seven weeks went to a property thinking was going to be a good flip. Um, and it was a 1960 s 3 hree-bedroom.

01:30.87

wongga

Just over a thousand square foot bungalow now if you are in the Winnipeg area. The 1960 s bungalow was kind of iconic. Um I grew up actually in a 1960 S Bungalow um as coincidence would have it three weeks three weeks 3 blocks away from. Property so that was my childhood home and a 1960 S Bungalow has a front door obviously and the back door you kind of go up 3 steps and the kitchen is right there and if you look to your left or right there is these basement stairs at the very back. So it's not like you're modern. Home where the stairs are in the middle of the home and it's right at the very back drove my parents crazy I then moved into a 1960 s bungalow as my first house you know kids falling down the stairs. It's actually you know a little annoying if you're living in 1 but and here's the big but. I saw this I'm thinking what could be better for a secondary suite because you need a separate entrance and because those stairs are right? there. It's the perfect venue and opportunity to create that secondary suite. So the property itself is one thousand forty nine square feet. It's a 3 bedroom bungalow with a very large yard. It's 50, but by 100 lot and this one's actually extra interesting because it has a front driveway and a back lane access. So there is my 2 opportunities for parking one for each unit.

03:02.91

wongga

Actually multiple for each unit. So the basement itself is somewhat so-called finished you know old wood paneling um bathrooms half renovated half destroyed whatever you want to call it? Um, but basically a blank canvas and the upstairs. Has been renovated recently where it has you know maple cabinets stainless steel appliances they um, remove the wall to the dining room created an open concept and they recently just refinished the hardwood floor so this is actually a really good opportunity to have. My cake can eat it too so to speak because I'm going to be able to very little work upstairs other than doors and windows to be able to rent that out very quickly while at the same time we are developing the basement and why that's advantageageous to myself and my investors. Is. Obviously we now have rental income coming in to offset the holding costs. Okay, so let's get into secondary suites I decided that I wanted to really get into the weeds on this myself. Um, including you know what. Not having a designer not going through a general contractor. Um I wanted to do this myself because of our property management company and the dozens of trades that we have but also I just wanted to really learn it and because I have some time on my hands to be able to do so.

04:29.18

wongga

Really become an expert at this because if that is the case all the work I'm putting in now I can rinse and repeat and just keep targeting these types of properties. Okay, so the city of Winnipeg if you look at their website. There are 2 things that you need for any project. Okay, the first thing. Is a development permit. Okay, and then you have a building permit and I have to admit I thought one was used in 1 case, one was used in the other so I'll explain the development permit is actually the what of the project and the building permit is the how. So in the case of a development permit and I'll give some examples you need a development permit approved if you're doing something like a new structure on a lot or in addition to a house exterior alterations some sitework change of use you know home-based businesses so you can see that. City wants to approve what you are doing to basically the site and how it affects the neighborhood is the way I'm looking at it and of course secondary suites fall into that category now the building permit a lot more people are probably familiar that is the how so that's where you're looking. Your typical inspections. You know, building codes you have to you know, go to current standards and bylaws. You know I think most people understand that concept. So let me start off by giving you some advice which worked really well for for us in this project.

06:03.60

wongga

Now development permits optimistically take about three weeks to approve if you have everything they want if you don't have everything they want after three weeks they reach out to you hey you're missing your site plan. You're missing the labels of the streets or whatever it might be You're probably waiting another three weeks you want to make it and get it right? The first time but sometimes you you don't now to get a jumptart on this. We had about 4 to five weeks of possession time. So there is something that you can do to speed this up. If you are friendly enough with the vendor the previous owner the property. So. That's what we did. We had them sign. What's called an owners statement and that allows a permit holder to apply for whatever you're going to apply for so in this case I had the vendor sign an owner's statement allowing me garrit wong. To apply for the development permit building permit would be the same thing but it's basically a blanket permission statement that allows other parties to create those permits now once title changes hands. It doesn't really matter that the owner has changed. Because the permit holder which would be myself or maybe your contract or whatnot is already on record so that is something that we did and yeah, the the ah vendor was more than happy to sign that so worked really hard and about two and a half weeks ago we had submitted that development permit.

07:34.56

wongga

Again, you might think I'm crazy but I actually went you know the design of this basement just really doesn't work where they have you're coming in to the basement itself. There's a floor drain. There's a telepost really didn't work for me. Um. And some of the suggestions I had from various trades that were coming through kind of were were locked into that line of thinking I wanted to start with a blank canvas and I'm kind of a computer geek. So I'm like okay, let's do this so I actually went with a laser measuring device. And sketch and a pad of paper and I sketched out the real measurements of the entire basement as it is right now I started learning a medium difficulty Cad program I entered everything in there and then I started moving walls around and bedrooms and bathrooms just to see. If I could do it. But also if I could completely revamp this so what's interesting is according to the city. You cannot have a secondary suite more than eight hundred Square feet in area so when I had started the podcast I said this property is one Thousand Forty Nine Square feet upstairs so obviously being a bungalow the footprint in the basement is also a thousand forty nine square feet so we can't go above Eight Hundred Square feet so that means I cannot dedicate the entire basement and the back entryway and those basement stairs.

09:06.33

wongga

To only the basement brand new secondary suite unit I'll read off a quote from the city of Winnipeg just for clarification and they say that a secondary suite quote must be no larger than 33% of the combined floor area of the principal dwelling and the secondary suite. Or Eight hundred Square feet or whichever is less and they also mention it can be no less than three hundred and fifty Square feet so I don't know why they have this. Um, it's very interesting to me, but it is what it is so we have to have a ah floor plan design. Between three hundred and fifty Square feet and eight hundred Square feet now obviously I want to maximize the floor plan as much as I can so if I can go up to seven hundred and ninety Nine Square feet that's what I'm going to do but that means I have to do something with 250 extra square feet in this basement. So. In thinking about it that means the basement stairs can be for both units. That means we have to create a common foyer vestibule. Whatever you want to call it at the bottom of those stairs which is fine and then you know being that we have a 3 hree-bedroom ah, very nicely decorated unit upstairs in a very good neighborhood I thought it would be fitting to actually give them a nice large storage area in the basement as well. Which coincidentally is going to allow us to give them their own breaker panel which is also a requirement by the city of winnipeck. Okay.

10:40.23

wongga

So now we're taken care of now we've got our eight hundred Square Foot two bedroom one bath unit and we have about two hundred and fifty Square feet of common area sorry um a little bit square feet of common area with a door that goes into the main. The basement unit. And another door that goes into the main floor storage unit. So you know this is an audio only podcast but hopefully you're in your car and you can kind of picture what I'm talking about here all right? So where we're at currently then is. We have windows that we have ordered now again windows at least right now at this present time that I'm recording the podcast ah 6 to eight weeks lead time. Um egress windows. You know you've got engineering. Drawings permits those windows also have to be ordered and things like roofing didn't want to get into the fall and then into snow and the roof on this one is is pretty bad wouldn't want to start. Painting and doing the upstairs little that we have to do if if the roof is going to be leaking so we were able to order those windows and put a deposit on that well before possession so give us a good three-week head start same thing with the egress windows and the roof was already scheduled.

12:04.63

wongga

At about six seven weeks out so I think we're in good shape right? Now we're just in a waiting pattern for this development permit I'm expecting to hear back any day I have my building permit ready to go. Ah, that's also a good three weeks but there are certain things you can maybe start to do at least you know, take apart some things and maybe a little bit of light demo I'm actually not even sure about that. So. That's what my contractors tell me but I do want to follow the rules. So we're going to be looking that up and if we have to wait. Um. For the city's blessing on the building permit before we touch anything then that's what we're going to do so currently, we're just in the middle of you know, removing some possessions that were left behind more like junk hauling I guess but not touching any demo so that is where we're at. Um, hopefully you found that very enlightening. It's been very very interesting for me as again. This is the first time I've ever done something like this and yeah, well in a few months I'll be giving you some more updates and certainly you can follow this story on social media. until then and until next week this is Garrett Wong your host of the investing twin podcast signing out have a fitful week.