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Update: found 3,200 sq ft of unused basement in my LoDo building and it pays half my note now
I own a small two story brick building near 18th and Blake and for two years I was only renting the top floor to a marketing shop and letting the basement sit full of old landlord junk. My broker kept trying to sell me on a big tenant buildout and quoted me $95 a sq ft, which I could not do. Then my electrician mentioned the city has a program that treats below grade space as storage or flex use, way less code to deal with, and I got a permit for about $2,100 instead of a full renovation. I cleared it out, sealed the walls, added lights and a dehumidifier off Craigslist, and put it up as artist studios and small storage at $14 a sq ft. Got five tenants in six weeks, mostly a potter, a bike repair guy, and a guy who stores vintage amps. That basement now brings in roughly $3,700 a month, which covers over half my mortgage. Has anyone else here figured out a cheap way to squeeze income out of dead space without triggering a huge buildout cost?
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barbaraw475d ago
I did something similar with a garage out back of my old place, turned it into two tiny workshop bays for a guy doing upholstery and another doing screen printing. The trick was keeping it "storage" on paper and not calling it office or retail, because the minute you say retail the city wants sprinklers and ADA bathrooms and your 2k permit turns into 60k. My inspector literally told me to call it "personal storage" and rent to people who don't have customers walking in. Sounds like you found the same loophole. The dehumidifier is key too, I went through two cheap ones before I just spent 300 on a real one. Five tenants in six weeks is fast, you must've priced it right.
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