Wondering how to develop a vacant lot that’s built to sell and give you the returns you deserve? We met with land investor, developer, engineer, and cash flow creator Gary MacDermid, for the second time, to see the progress of his recent land development project. If you’re interested in this series’ first installment you can read the conversation here, or watch it here. The transcription below features our conversation with Gary and uncovers the process and progress of the project-septic tanks, well drilling, manufactured homes, and all. If you’re interested in seeing the land and watching the conversation click here!
[00:00]
Masrur Huq: Alright. So, the last time we were here, it was back in May. Now it’s September 1st. And we got, what, the two houses on the lot. The well is completely done.
[00:12]
Gary MacDermid: Right. Well, the tanks, the two houses.
[00:21]
Masrur Huq: Yeah, what did the well come out to be? So, how big is the well?
[00:27]
Gary MacDermid: They dug down to just over 700 feet, they think the water level was probably between three and 400 feet. So, we wanted to make sure that we dug well below just in case there’s some drawdown from some of the developments everywhere, stick-built and another mobile home and another mobile home. There’s just too much going on.
[00:48]
Masrur Huq: Right. And so you guys got a little bit bigger tank too, right?
[00:50]
Gary MacDermid: Well, we just got a 3000-gallon tank. I mean, we probably could have been fine with 2000. They’re going to be shared between only four. With government back financing, it’s limited to sharing it to four different lots. You could certainly do more than that if you weren’t trying to resell these with government-backed financing at VA, FHA, USDA.
[01:12]
Masrur Huq: Right. Okay. And so now that part of the well is done, and right now what’s happening is the sewer lines, is that right?
[01:20]
Gary MacDermid: Well, so there’s no sewer service to this area. But what they did, I don’t know if you can see that here. There’s a quite a big hole. So, that’ll be the septic for this house. And, and just so that you know that this is not a road, although it looks like a nice gravel like it could be a road, it’s actually another home site.
[01:37]
Masrur Huq: We’re standing on, we’re the third home site, there’s one home site there, and then one home site right behind us as well. And so those two are almost ready. Right?
[01:47]
Gary MacDermid: So, yeah, so these are already assembled, I mean, that one still has some drywall work that needs to be done. And then that one has, let’s see. So, we’re going to put skirting around the stilts that you see, same thing with that and we put the stairs, then we’ll finish the septic tank, then the next thing we’re going to do is we’re going to trench so that we can have through our utility easement, we’re going to have a trench that we could put the water and the electrical conduit because here we chose to do underground, that’s generally better than the above-ground, could be easier to have power outages.
So, we’ll put the electrical underground, get the panels in, connect to the 3000-gallon tank that we put on the well. And then to each house will have water and electric. And then we should be pretty much done. We’ll finish off with a road that’s going to go just from here, maybe a driveway, and then all the way out to that main road right there.
[02:42]
Masrur Huq: Got it, perfect. Any other updates or anything else that you see, any big items left in this project besides just this third one?
[02:48]
Gary MacDermid: Yes. So, I’m trying to think, I mean, that’s pretty much it really. We’re in the home stretch here, we’re getting this third home, this is coming in tomorrow. And then so the electricals already in the design and they should come in and put the tank in tomorrow or the following week. But we’re probably a couple of weeks out for finishing this project.
[03:13]
Masrur Huq: And then are these two units already sold or one is under contract, right?
[03:18]
Gary MacDermid: Yes. Actually, everything was under contract pre-sold. One of them just fell out. So, if you know somebody that’s looking for a four-two, just under 1600 square foot, that lovely home right there that’s available.
[03:31]
Guest Speaker: My biggest question was regarding the retention for the lot, what do you guys do for?
[03:35]
Gary MacDermid: Yeah, so, basically, we had an engineer take a look at this. We looked at the FEMA flood maps, and we looked at where the wash was, there’s a wash nearby, not on this lot, but it’s nearby. And we took a look at some of the elevations to see what we would need to have this at so that we would be able to prevent the risks or minimize the risk of floods. So, what we did is we put this home site, we actually elevated it by bringing in extra dirt and gravel and we packed it down and then now as you can see here, we’re putting this home on stilts. And then we’re going to put the skirting around that to hide it and then we’ll put the stairs and you take a peek inside, this is just under 1600 square feet. Clayton home, brand new manufactured home
[05:40]
Masrur Huq: Thank you, Gary. We’ll do a recap at the end of the project and we’ll do a round three of this video.
[05:43]
Gary MacDermid: Yeah, I appreciate it.
END
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