As an avid tinkerer I've reached a point where I can justify buying a shop. For the last 20+ years I've been fascinated with tearing things apart, machining, fixing houses and everything that goes with it. I'm a full-time desk jockey by day and a shade-tree machinist/gunsmith and rental property owner by night, so there's always something that needs fixing or tinkering with. I've seemed to out grow my little one car garage shop, so lately I've been looking for a place that's a little bigger to stretch my wings and take on bigger projects.
I've always been on the search for a house with a bigger garage, but just can't seem to find one that I like, so lately my search took a different direction. I decided to look for either a shop space to rent for my machining and rental property side-business or find something that I could buy at a good price (no sense in paying someone else's mortgage) to transition toward a dedicated shop and get all the stuff out of my house.
I like to cruise all the normal outlets for finding properties for sale, Craigslist, the MLS, and Loopnet.com (more for commercial listings). More recently I found a small 1500 sq ft shop for sale that used to be a radiator shop. It wasn't in the nicest part of town, was pretty primitive (heat, running water, cider block walls, roll up door), but was listed at price reasonable enough that my side business could very realistically absorb on a monthly basis.
I took a chance and called up the realtor to take a look at the place, and confirmed what I saw in the listing pictures that it was a pretty basic building, but certainly had a lot of potential and would be a good stepping stone as I continue to build my side hustle into more of a full-time gig.
The building:
1500 sq ft Cider block building
Forced air/natural gas heat
toilet, but no sink
Inline image 3Inline image 2Inline image 110x12 overhead door
lots of windows
compressor/furnace room
The Plan:
Ultimately, I'd like to use this as a personal shop/rental office for the next few years and make improvements along the way. I'd like to fix it up with the intent to rent it out so I can move to a bigger space as the business grows. The strategy is to rent it out to a small construction/plumbing/electrical contractor because it's a decent amount of shop space, but since there's very limited street parking, it's not conducive to drive up customers.
With that in mind, I'd like to build out a modest office space and proper bathroom (with shower). I haven't determined how much I want to dump into the place, but the short list of improvements include:
New roof
New windows
Front facade
Update Plumbing
Update Electrical
Insulation
New concrete
HVAC (maybe mini-split type AC)
Office build out
Bathroom with Shower
I've always been on the search for a house with a bigger garage, but just can't seem to find one that I like, so lately my search took a different direction. I decided to look for either a shop space to rent for my machining and rental property side-business or find something that I could buy at a good price (no sense in paying someone else's mortgage) to transition toward a dedicated shop and get all the stuff out of my house.
I like to cruise all the normal outlets for finding properties for sale, Craigslist, the MLS, and Loopnet.com (more for commercial listings). More recently I found a small 1500 sq ft shop for sale that used to be a radiator shop. It wasn't in the nicest part of town, was pretty primitive (heat, running water, cider block walls, roll up door), but was listed at price reasonable enough that my side business could very realistically absorb on a monthly basis.
I took a chance and called up the realtor to take a look at the place, and confirmed what I saw in the listing pictures that it was a pretty basic building, but certainly had a lot of potential and would be a good stepping stone as I continue to build my side hustle into more of a full-time gig.
The building:
1500 sq ft Cider block building
Forced air/natural gas heat
toilet, but no sink
Inline image 3Inline image 2Inline image 110x12 overhead door
lots of windows
compressor/furnace room
The Plan:
Ultimately, I'd like to use this as a personal shop/rental office for the next few years and make improvements along the way. I'd like to fix it up with the intent to rent it out so I can move to a bigger space as the business grows. The strategy is to rent it out to a small construction/plumbing/electrical contractor because it's a decent amount of shop space, but since there's very limited street parking, it's not conducive to drive up customers.
With that in mind, I'd like to build out a modest office space and proper bathroom (with shower). I haven't determined how much I want to dump into the place, but the short list of improvements include:
New roof
New windows
Front facade
Update Plumbing
Update Electrical
Insulation
New concrete
HVAC (maybe mini-split type AC)
Office build out
Bathroom with Shower
