Well, with my dad's passing last fall, I have to make the decision of what to do with his house/land. I think there is definatly some opportunity here but I need to be carefull. I'll give you some detail.
The neighborhood is BAD, mostly old beat down rent houses near down town. BUT it is VERY close to downtown and just off of a major hwy through town. I would say 1/10th of the houses in the neighborhood have been demolished or removed so there is a lot of vacant lots. There are quite a few commercial lots sprinkles about and a main road in 1/2 block behind the house.
The house is in BAD shape, so much so that it will cost more to get it up to snuff to sell than it could sell for, built in the teens/twenties it need ALOT of work. SO I need to get the house OFF the lot, I could try to sell it as is structure only, but my best bet is probably to donate it to our FD and let them torch it for training. (Not sure if they do that in town). Short of that it will cost $3-5K to get the lot cleared and graded and ready to build something on. I have considered selling the whole thing as is but it's not even worth $20K!
SO on to my opportunity. The lot is zoned light industrial/residential! So I could build a decent shop on the site. I havn't recieved the plot back yet but I am figuring a 40' x 80-90' should be doable. I am thinking steel building with no windows but lots of skylights and a bay door on each side and a bathroom. I know of a guy that MIGHT want to rent out space for his wood shop business, so I am thinking if I COULD rent space out for my building payments then it would be a no brainer to build this shop. The rest of the space could be used for all the stuff currently not fitting in my garage at home. I figure I can get it all done for about $20K and if all fell through, then I could just sell it as a commercial proporty for some profit.
This is the house I grew up in and I want to do something good with it, and I am realistic about it's condition. I have never had this much available capital to me and I want to make sure I invest it wisely. There are some efforts to make the down town area cleaner / better so I figgure that at the very least the proporty could just sit and gain value eventually, probalby 15+ yrs. Taxes are CHEAP right now, so we could just sit on it. And I share ownership with my little bro and sis. They are both ok with the shop idea.
I have a good steady job as does my wife and we are doing just fine money wise. But this could be a break into somthing bigger for me. My thinking is that with more room = more tools and a space that woud be mine to create. I would really LOVE to build stuff for a living but I don't have the space to play at home really. This is what is really driving the shop idea.
So I am just looking for some consensus, concerns, objections, yea nea's or simple some other view points. I know this board has a vast variety of experiecne, just wanting to tap in to it abit.
......and i am looking for a career where i don't have to spell...