Over the past year, the old run-down warehouse at 3100 Gravois in the Benton Park West neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri has been given new life. Most notably occupied by John Fabick Tractor Co. from 1941 to 1973, the property was stricken with major lead and asbestos problems, and in desperate need of rehab. The overwhelming workload involved with the project must have scared many people off as the property had been vacant since 2004. But when the mold, lead and asbestos remediation company Advanced Environmental Systems Inc. (AES) found the property in 2008, they saw potential.

After purchasing the property in 2008, AES and their developer H&A Restoration and Development were able to secure $440,680 in brownfield tax credits from the Missouri Department of Economic Development to help address the major environmental concerns at the property. Work began in June of 2009 and just wrapped up in April 2010. The total cost of the remediation and historic rehab was $1.2 million. The developers are now seeking LEED Silver Certification and state and federal historic tax credits. Read more

When it comes to managing properties, its generally best to keep things as simple as possible. One of the most common “emergency” issues many landlords encounter is a tenant locking themselves out of their apartment. Even if you live nearby, having to deal with such problems can be a major nuisance. Thankfully, there is something you can target to help cut back on lockouts: handleset locks on entry doors.

Most properties nowadays have both a handle lock and a deadbolt. In order to lock the deadbolt, a person must use a key to lock it from the outside. If a tenant locks that lock, its safe to say that they didn’t leave their keys on the coffee table. On the other hand, handle locks can be quite tricky. If you lock the handleset from the inside and close the door, the door isn’t opening without the key. Most lockouts happen because of this. Especially if the tenant has kids. To make matters worse, some handleset models will actually rotate from the inside of the door even if the door is locked. These handles make accidental lockouts even easier.

This problem can be removed if you simply don’t install handle locks at your apartments. Tenants can still lose their keys, but this will remove one of the more common causes of lockouts. On a cautionary note, you also need to consider the security issues surrounding the removal of a handle lock. A locked handleset and deadbolt, in tandem, are much more burglar-proof than one lock alone. If you remove your handle lockset, I would recommend using a little higher quality deadbolt and perhaps installing an oversized metal security plate on the inside of the door frame.

Whatever you do, just be concious of the side-effects on property security. But if you mitigate any potential issues, removing those handle locks can be a real time saver.

If you have ever rented an apartment, chances are you have heard of Craigslist. If you haven’t you are missing out on the best way to advertise your apartment units. And did I mention that it is free in most cities? Having placed my fair share of postings on the service, I have learned a few tricks on how to make the most out of each ad with the least amount of effort possible. Read more

The Tower Grove South neighborhood of South St. Louis is so large, and stylistically diverse, that there are actually neighborhoods within the neighborhood. One of them is Tower Grove heights, which is bounded by Arsenal on the north, Grand on the east, Utah on the south, and Gustine on the west.

In an effort to stand out more from the neighborhood-at-large, this past week, Tower Grove Heights put up boundary signs signifying the borders of the neighborhood. The signs on black metal polls about 12-feet tall. They actually look very nice. Hopefully the larger neighborhood will have something similar in the future.

Check out the Tower Grove Heights neighborhood website for more on the area.

If you frequent Russell Boulevard through the McKinley Heights neighborhood, it would be hard to miss the huge 4-family at 2027 Russell. It’s one of those prominent buildings that has been either vacant or under construction for what seems like forever. Thankfully, that trend will soon be coming to an end under the buildings new ownership.

I actually listed this property for sale in late February for the previous owner. We had a lot of interested, but at 9,352 sq ft including the finishable basement space, it was a lot of building for even a seasoned investor to take on. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to find a buyer willing to take the project on in LWY Properties LLC. We closed on the deal about a week ago.

The new owners already have financing in place to complete the rehab of the property. Considering the current real estate climate, they will be turning the units into higher-end apartments rather than condos. Looks like another eyesore getting a second life. Construction should begin anytime. Here are a few pictures of what the place currently looks like.

Last month, I posted  a story about how the contract on my rehab project at 3969 Humphrey fell through due to under-appraisal. It somehow appraised at $101,000. Thankfully, everyone but that appraiser thought the number to be totally off and I had it back under contract within a few days. Actually closing on the property this very afternoon.

The thing I find so interesting about this situation is what the second appraisal came in at. This one came in at $135,000. That means the second appraisal was a whopping 34% higher than the first one. There is no question that the first appraiser simply didn’t know what they were doing. It just boggles my mind that two appraisers looking at the same building and same comps can be so radically different. If you weren’t convinced already, just add this one to the ever-growing proof that the current market is pretty crazy.

When determining whether or not a property is worth purchasing, one of the traditional reference points is the cap rate. For real estate, a cap rate is the ratio between the yearly net operating income of a building to the cost of that building. The higher that number is, the better the deal.

When determining your net operating income, you’ll need to tally all the income from rents and other sources over the previous year. When these numbers are not available, you’ll need to use projections. If you subtract your annual expenses from this number (things like maintenance, water, sewer, trash, etc.) you have your net operating income. Read more

Thomas Coffee, located at 922 South Boyle in the Grove (Forest Park Southeast) neighborhood of St. Louis, is in the midst of a reinvention. Alex Inhen over at urbanSTL just did a great spotlight on the story. Be sure to check it out.

Last December I featured a story about a large former LRA shell at 3500 Illinois getting a thumbs up on a complete green rehab. I finally got a chance to take a look at the progress at the project site, and I am happy to say the Marine Villa property has really come a long way in the last five months. In fact, from what I am told by Tiger Lily Development, the project should be finished by mid-May.

At this point, the geothermal system is in place along with almost all the exterior work and interior work up to the drywall. They were actually installing the hardwood floors while I was there so one would think they will be onto kitchen and bath work by next week. The change is really miraculous considering that the roof was half missing and the place was nearly caving in less than six months ago.

When completed, the building with hold an Energy Star designation for the green systems. It will also receive credentials from a new green program call Builders Challenge, which will actually be a first for the St. Louis area. So not only is this rehab really going to help the aesthetics of the block, its going to do it with minimum impact to the environment.

I took a bunch of pictures of the construction progress. You can see them below. I’ll come back with final pictures when the project is complete in May.

With foreclosures still near record highs for the St. Louis area, there is still a lot of doubt in our housing market. Sure residential properties are selling better than they were, but all these REOs will continue to hold values down. That might sound horrible, but this is good for the area in many ways. Read more

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