Kristi moved from Toronto, Canada to Long Beach, California in 2007 to start a full-time rehab/re-sell business.
Since 2008, she has purchased over 250 houses in Southern California, and her specialty is buying “hoarded houses”.
Her current projects include numerous flips, as well as keeping some houses as rentals and building ADU’s for cash flow. Kristi currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. She enjoys outdoor activities, playing her guitar and good food and wine.
Episode Notes:
Narrator This is The Norris Group’s real estate investor radio show the award-winning show dedicated to thought leaders shaping the real estate industry and local experts revealing their insider tips to succeed in an ever -changing real estate market hosted by author, investor and hard money lender, Bruce Norris.
Aaron Norris Hey, everybody is Aaron Norris over at the Norris Group and today we are here with longtime real estate investor Kristi Cirtwell. She started in Toronto but made her way to Long Beach, California back in 2007, the perfect time to becoming a full timetime real estate investor. And since 2008, she’s purchased over 250 homes and her specialty happens to be hoarder homes. So, today we’re going to talk about everything from ADUs, to SB 9, to hoarder homes. She currently flips tons of projects she’s doing ADUs, some really interesting things in like lots splits and in her spare time she enjoys outdoor activities playing her guitar, and of course good food and wine who doesn’t. And everybody wants to know, do you still have the 1979 Volkswagen bus?
Kristi Cirtwill Good memory. Yes, I do.
Aaron Norris Are you rocking it?
Kristi Cirtwill She’s, she’s a lot of work. We’re close to say that.
Aaron Norris I can only imagine. Well, let me set the stage with a few things that I think real estate investors should, should know I’ve been presenting on ADUs now for I think three years and then SB 9 for the last year. I think there’s some really cool opportunity. We’re getting close. I think SB 9 is going to follow ADU and make it more investor friendly. But the National Association of Homebuilders came out and showed that new construction nationwide on an average bill of around $400,000, $100,000, almost 93,870 to be exact goes towards things like government and impact fees, which is crazy. So, you wonder why here in California with a starting price of land, what’s a, what’s a half an acre going for these days in LA, Kristi?
Kristi Cirtwill Oh gosh, yeah, who knows? I’ve seen it anywhere from 400,000 upwards.
Aaron Norris Right. So, before you even construct anything sticks and bricks, you’re already looking at, you know, four to 500,000 just in governmental fees and, and land costs, which is crazy. So, the state has just released within the last year, it’s new RITA numbers, which stands for Regional Housing Needs Allocation. And the one reason that cities and counties might work with you is because they are, they are really adding teeth to these rules that if the cities and jurisdictions do not meet their goals in the next eight years or so, they’re going to start taking away specific funding, like CDBG funds. So, cities are, they’ve got to figure it out. And I’ll give you an example. Orange County has to build 183,000 through October 2029. It’s crazy. And the few planning people I know they’re like, it’s insane. Like we would have to replicate the best years ever every year leading up to that. So, it’s just really, really interesting to see this in the play. And then you can look, if you think the government’s doing a good job. My favorite go to is the watch the HHH fund that got passed in 2016, where the citizens of LA, you are paying $1.2 billion, so the government could supposedly create 10,000 affordable units and as October of 2021, there was only 1000 of those available and an average price of $579,000 per unit. I love it when Charlotte Sean says is the best Californian’s spend more money on unaffordable housing than anywhere.
Kristi Cirtwill Yes.
Aaron Norris Imagine if they would have take that $1.2 billion given it to investors to do ADUs, how crazy crazy crazy? Well, let’s start at the beginning wince when you have a conversation with about an ADU, how do you describe it to the layperson?
Kristi Cirtwill Well, I guess a better term is just saying a back house.
Aaron Norris Yeah.
Kristi Cirtwill You know, a house in the, in the rear of your property that is an additional living space for somebody either an extended family member or you know, a renter to help you out with mortgage payment.
Aaron Norris And, and there’s also something called a Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit, which is just a converted garage, right? Pretty much?
Kristi Cirtwill Yeah, so it has to be converted existing space. So, if your garage is attached, generally they’ll let you convert that and call it a Junior ADU. But when you start getting into Junior ADUs, you have to live in one of the units you have to live on the property, technically.
Aaron Norris Yeah, tech. She’s all technically wink.
Kristi Cirtwill Well, you know what, I actually talked to a planner of a city last week and he’s like, Yeah, I mean, you should intend, the keyword being intend but there’s no way that they have to enforce it.
Aaron Norris I was gonna say who is enforcing it? Well, I think the place where investors are going to run amok are neighbors neighbors are truly freaking out if you, let’s real quick because it comes up Triplex Sizing. Can you describe that?
Kristi Cirtwill Sure. Well all back up and when I first started building ADUs in 2018, back then you were supposed to live in either the main house or the ADU. Well, I didn’t know that rule. And I was building five at the same time. And I started getting all these letters halfway through construction saying, ‘Oh, by the way, you have to sign and notarize and record this document saying you’re going to live in one of them.’ Anyway, they did away with that rule. So, you can actually be building an ADU on a rental property now and have both units rented. But now as you know, with SB 9, you can technically have up to four units on an R1 zone property. Now doesn’t always make sense to do that.
Aaron Norris Now, I read the the law, and it says that you can split the lot, but the city does not allow, have to allow you to build an ADU. So, that’s going to be very city specific. Have you already talked to certain cities? And they’re cool with it? Like yes, split a lot, build ADUs, we’d love that.
Kristi Cirtwill Yeah. And as a matter of fact, two different planners, Long Beach and Lakewood. I’ve talked to both, and they’re pretty open about it. Some cities don’t really have I mean, it’s just like when ADUs were first passed, and cities are like, ‘what is this?’ So, you kind of just default to the state. So, I’m sure as the months go on each city will develop their own plans, or, you know, set of rules. But as of right now, most of them are just defaulting to what state put in place, which is technically, it doesn’t matter what size the I mean, there’s some discretion you have to use there, but you can technically split a lot, or you don’t even need to split it. You can have main house, then what they’re calling a second unit, a second house and then ADU and then JDU, so that…
Aaron Norris That’s great. Oh my goodness. Yeah, okay.
Kristi Cirtwill …on on one, one single, it has to be zoned R-1 to do that.
Aaron Norris Interesting. So, if you could technically, if they got really fancy, you could do a lot split and do three units on each property.
Kristi Cirtwill If it would fit.
Aaron Norris If it, Yeah. That, that brings, you know, cram, Lord, the idea of, you know, design being really important. You don’t want to create a piece of junk that people don’t want to live in or where it takes an hour to park. I mean, I think investors, we really have to learn to play nice, and we’re going to be our own worst enemy. When it comes to this. I think cities and counties are going to want to work with us. I’ve been on housing commissions, I’m not what not having the conversation about, you’re never going to do this on your own, you need investors to come to the table, because right now, SB 9 was really written with the homeowner in mind, but how many homeowners can stomach the construction process in today’s market? I mean, it’s not easy. They’ve never done construction before, but it’s a supply chain disruption. I mean, we’re having to order appliances 10 months before we need them in Florida. It’s just, it’s just such a difficult process and price increases. I think this is going to be the year, we see a lot of wage increases in construction. And that’s not a fun surprise. When you’re building you’re like Sorry, it’s gonna cost 10 grand more. I just don’t think the average homeowner is prepared for that. So, and I don’t think lending has caught up just yet. It’s a it’s a very new process. So, it’s gonna be interesting. We’re going to talk more about all of that but how, how has been the ADU process you were one of the very first investors who really dove into it, I guess let’s start there. Why did you think this was such a great idea?
Kristi Cirtwill Ah, I sometimes jump into things with both feet and you know, that could be a good thing and a bad thing I sort of felt like I paved the way in some cities but on the other hand, you know, it was just really tough in the beginning you had to have minimum lot square footage. Like I remember one city wanted 7200 square foot, lots sizes and now it can be anything really. But you know, I got a bunch done and it was a matter of seeing all these awesome houses that I just kept flipping and there’s nothing wrong with flipping because that’s really brought me a lot of great money over the years. But you know, you see these, you know, just boring three bed, two bath 1400 square foot house, that would be the perfect rental and not really having a way to rent it because for what you would pay it just didn’t pencil. But now with the loans the way they are pretty much any of these houses if you can get a regular conventional loan, which I can still get a couple more, the rents off that property will cover PITI then then you build an ADU. I am still building a couple and I have figured out a little bit of a niche. So, these are all in South LA County, North Orange County. And if I furnish them, I get not only a higher rent, but a better quality tenant. And I’m renting them on average for five to six months. So, there are people coming to town for contract work or whatever, they need to play a landing place. And so I’m getting way more rent and just a better quality person for that unit little bit more turnover. But I’m sort of doing a bit of both there. So, so, if you’re getting like, like, literally for a studio size, I can get 1950 in rent for furnished unit. So, so, let’s say that’s a garage conversion, that’s going to cost less than 100 grand, you’re making almost $2,000. So, that is your cash flow.
Aaron Norris And it’s not like an Airbnb where you’re dealing with weekly turnover and all of that and…
Kristi Cirtwill No, I don’t they, don’t they don’t let you do Airbnb are the short term that less than 30 days usually on the ADUs.
Aaron Norris Yeah, in the last seven days. I’ve seen two cities nationwide that lock that down even further. And I think investors should expect that nationwide as we have. Unfortunately, the California is affordable housing problem because of COVID has now spread everywhere. So, a lot of them were like, ‘Okay, we need to put the kibosh on rentals, 30 days or less.’ Oddly enough, yesterday was the very first day I have launched my first 30 Plus day rental. And I’m shocked I thought on a good day I left it furnished. I thought on a good day, I’d get three grand, this is eventually going to go for five grand a month. This was a three bedroom, two bath condo 1500 square feet. I’m laughing ‘I’m a what?’ This is a $60,000 a year property. That’s nuts.
Kristi Cirtwill Oh, yeah.
Aaron Norris And that, again, targeting a few different things. So, what you said contract executive renewal people in contracts coming out for an extended period of time where your option is a lot less than staying in a hotel or an extended stay. You got traveling nurses, which are really popular graduate students who are traveling need to be in town for a while. So, it’s a great option. I’m, I’m excited. We’ll see. I’m also working with Patrick Diamond for the first time and you met him when we did….
Kristi Cirtwill Yeah.
Aaron Norris Oh my gosh, he cracks me up because he’s all about the experience. So, he stayed there. And he’s oh my gosh, he’s so funny. He’s like ‘I envisioned the back bedroom with a desk overlooking the mountains.’ I’m all, you’re gonna have to show me the data on that one. I’m not getting rid of a bed, with a desk. But there…
Kristi Cirtwill You have to know your target…
Aaron Norris Yeah.
Kristi Cirtwill …person for that property. And if you can figure what, what that is, and have and consider outdoor space, even with ease, I mean, people want that, and especially over the last couple of years, you know, they want somewhere to go outside and sit so I always try to incorporate a private space for the ADU. You know, even if it’s a studio size, you’ve got to have some space designated. They don’t want to be crammed in a 350 square foot place all the time. So, have some outdoor space allocated for that too.
Aaron Norris Do you typically, this is a question I really don’t know the answer to because the way that you do these, do you renovate the front house, rent it out and then focus on the ADU?
Kristi Cirtwill The last couple that I’m doing Yeah, that’s why I’ve done. So, in fact, I just did that, I just renovated the main house and rented it out. And, like 2500 views on Zillow and like 27 applications or some ridiculous thing. So, and I thought I was pushing the rent on that. But I told them right from the start, and I wanted to make sure I picked somebody and you’re not gonna have a garage, I will buy you an 8 by 10 storage shed for the backyard. So, I got all that set up. So, they have somewhere to put their storage. But they know that the rent, that the garage is not part of what they’re renting.
Aaron Norris Did it impact rents at all? What you ended up getting for rent and you didn’t have to…
Kristi Cirtwill No, but it didn’t I would say it didn’t impact the rent at all.
Aaron Norris Didn’t impact the quality of tenant for you?
Kristi Cirtwill No, no. Great tenants.
Aaron Norris It’s good to know. One of the reasons I asked is that is one of the biggest, city asked me to teach this because they were getting some feedback from some very knowledgeable NIMBYs who were saying number one, the utilities couldn’t handle the bandwidth, the sewer in particular. I’m like, well, is that true? It is an older area. They’re like, No, it’s not true. I’m like, because in my experience, like all the investors, I know they’re going to renovate the front house and then build the ADU and which means they’re probably going to install newer fixtures things are going to be more energy efficient. So, if anything, it would make it less, I don’t know, less needed. And what was the other big one that they were complaining about? Because in Riverside it’s not about parking. It was about utilities and but the NIMBYs are are loud. They definitely cause some problems. Do you have problems with neighbors at all?
Kristi Cirtwill I haven’t so far. I think the thing to say to that is just when you’re building the ADU, you have to have certain upgrades anyway, you have to have electrical panel upgrade on the main house, you have to have your sewer line tied in, you’re not going to tie it in if the main sewer line is too small to begin with, so they it’s all connected anyway. So, if you’re upgrading the main house, you just have to make sure you’re doing the right upgrades for the ADU at same time. You know, maybe leave that trench open. So you, you know, can tie in the adu stuff to the main house. So.
Aaron Norris It doesn’t impact tenants. And that’s really good to hear. And are they staying a long time? Is there been any problems with tenant turnover?
Kristi Cirtwill Not in the main house. Yeah, I had to get a little creative in the beginning with how I actually got these ADUs built. Because that was a bit of a challenge. Like some, some of these houses were existing already and already rented. So, I thought, ‘Well, how am I going to get this tenant to give up half of their backyard? So I can build ADU back there?’ So, one by one, you just sort of think about, okay, what could be in it for them. So, this, this couple that I just rented to this house, I had 27 applications. I said I would actually give them a little bit of a discount while the construction is going on. But I honestly in hindsight, I don’t even think I needed to offer that because there’s just such a demand. I mean, it’s a three bed, two bath, 1400 square foot house. You know, there’s such a demand for it that I don’t think I needed to offer that little discount, but I will.
Aaron Norris Sean told me once one time, we’re talking about Airbnb, how it actually changed the math on rentals. So, it actually increased the pricing of homes. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot and perhaps ADU and SB 9 in particular is going to continue that trend. And we’re going to actually see prices go up. And when they become more popular when all of a sudden R-1 lots are, you know, start to densify, densify a little bit. The numbers just changed when you have two houses on there.
Kristi Cirtwill 1That’s a good point. Maybe that’s more the case in places like Big Bear Lake Arrowhead where, you know, hopefully Airbnb isn’t going away anytime soon. And people want that second be vacation home for themselves. I think the prices would have just gone up anyway. Because your interest rates are just still so low. And they’re still low inventory.
Aaron Norris Yeah, which I have that conversation so much about people thinking that the market is going to drop, my you can sit on the sidelines, if you want, I just don’t see, I just don’t see why that would happen. There’s, there’s so many things that are not in play that were in play the last cycle, the crazy financing, the builders are building very differently. We don’t have a glut of inventory, we took a decade off of building anyway. And all of a sudden you’ve got Millennials getting off the couch. And they’re just coming into the market in droves. And they want single family, they want more space, they’re tired of living in apartments. So, the dynamics are just so different. Are you thinking something similar, or…?
Kristi Cirtwill Yeah, I mean, even as a real estate investor, the way I look at it is okay, I’m still buying a couple of rentals to hold not that I really want too many more rentals, but it’s like, I can still get the loans. So, the last ones I just got refinanced at three, 3.625, or something I think my interest rate was. So, if you’re going to hold a property for 10 years or more anyway, who cares? Really, you know, and generally, as a real estate investor, you’re buying with a bit of equity, especially if it’s a fixer, you’re buying with a lot of equity. You know, you have to dump more money into it. But, you know, like, I’ve got one recently, I only needed to just do basic upgrades to it. So, I could get the thing financed, right from the get go with a good loan. And yeah, I’ll have to come out of pocket 100 grand or a bit less for the garage conversion, you know, but I’ll get 2000 up to 2000 a month off that. And I’ll have that 100 grand back in no time. So, yeah, no, I’m gonna hold that for 10 plus years, so it doesn’t matter really what the value is doing to me.
Aaron Norris Have you had this experience where people are moving out and all of a sudden you want everybody to move out this year because rent increases?
Kristi Cirtwill Well, actually, I’m pretty good at increasing rent every year just a little bit. I mean…
Aaron Norris You’re in LA, you have to.
Kristi Cirtwill Well, I have to. Yeah, I…
Aaron Norris … get stuck.
Kristi Cirtwill Yeah, yeah, I don’t want to be greedy but same time I want to get them used to a rent increase every year, then they expect something then I don’t feel bad. You know, if I, if I increase it a big chunk in three years, I’d rather do a little bit every year.
Aaron Norris Yeah, that’s. That’s smart. I’ve done that. I played that very wrong. I have my…
Kristi Cirtwill You’re too nice.
Aaron Norris I am way too nice. And I talked to Mike Cantu about this, he’s like, ‘don’t feel bad’ because I just really want people to stay there thinking, I just didn’t realize how far I was off even five years if you haven’t been very good about raising rents, it’s a very different five years, who knew I was the $1,000 off?
Kristi Cirtwill Even 30 bucks or 50 bucks, you know, some small amount, then they get used to it.
Aaron Norris Yeah. Something to learn. Has COVID changed? how tennis feel about your properties, or AD, with ADUs, does it matter?
Kristi Cirtwill No, I don’t think COVID really changed too much. Except, like I mentioned the the backyard space, I have that with all my properties. And going forward, I’m trying to be even more thoughtful with that. You know, just because I can stick four units on a 5000 square foot lot doesn’t mean I will, it doesn’t mean necessarily going to pencil for one thing I’m starting to figure out. But nothing is, is you still should have, you shouldn’t build every last square foot out, which I don’t think you could do anyway, you’ve got to have some yard space. But for it to be thoughtful space in, on that property that people can just have a seat outside. I think that’s really important. I think if we’ve learned anything last couple years, it’s, it’s probably that.
Aaron Norris Joey you…
Joey Romero So, yeah, so, so hear me out. If you’re gonna do three or four in the back theme, you know, let’s let’s make it the Shire back there, you know, from The Hobbit? Or, you know, let’s make it tattooing. You know, like, make them feel like they’re living somewhere, you know, from the movie theaters of I don’t know.
Aaron Norris I know that works for Airbnb, the whole experience thing is like the number one category of growing price increases, but I don’t know if rentals count like that. But that’s so funny idea.
Joey Romero You know, a serious question, though. So, you know, I’m not familiar with the DC LA guys, they, you know, we visited a couple of their builds and some of their ADUs, they go like tri level, you know, well, they’ll, they’ll put, you know, the, you know, they’ll almost keep the garage, put the living space right above it. The bedrooms right above that, and then even a rooftop, you know, area like how, how high are you going? What goes into the thought process in what, what type of ADU that you build?
Kristi Cirtwill I think that could really work for LA properties. For like, I’ve got mine in Long Beach, Lakewood, Garden Grove, Stanton, bellflower, like those areas. So, it’s more just residential, boring neighborhoods. But my thought is, it’s more of like a condo alternative. So, instead of somebody being in a, like an apartment building, or a condo building, they are still in a small space, but it’s like a little mini apartment, condo space. So, you’ve, Yeah, you’ve got the main house, I usually reserve the driveway for use of the parking for the main house tenants. But then maybe you’ve converted a garage and you have another studio sized ADU or JDU or something. So, trying to build more of a maybe a little mini community feel like a tiny not a tiny home community. But maybe something like that is sort of how I envision if you’re going to do more than two units.
Joey Romero And is there a premium to let’s say, if you get a, like a garage that actually accesses to an alley, like in they don’t even have to go through the front? Is that Is that better? Like, are you targeting that? Is that something you look at?
Kristi Cirtwill It just depends because if you can have an off alley, or off street parking, then the alley is useful because they can come down the alley and pull into their parking space and get out and walk two steps to their ADU. But if you don’t really have the off street parking, then who cares? The car is gonna end up on the street anyway.
Aaron Norris I remember I was gonna tell you before when I’m teaching, and you’re trying to butt up against a lot of the nimbyism. They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna ruin the neighborhood.’ You know, ‘these landlords are taking over.’ I don’t know too many landlords who are going to spend 100 grand to piss off all their neighbors and also to provide a terrible experience for a tenant who is going to create a lot of turnover. I just don’t know who’d be stupid enough to do that. So, I I’m glad that you said that design matters to you because it’s a big deal. And people keep talking about it. And in this particular area, where there was a lot of nimbyism won by a realtor, by the way, who is causing problems among you guys? There’s these detached garages who hasn’t that haven’t been touched in 100 years. These are not precious little gems. They’re terrible. Like, this will look nicer. Like please, if anything, I told the city I would love to see them. incentivize investors by creating, Riverside used to have a whole house rehab program where the more energy efficiency and the more upgrades you digital property, the more rebate you would get back. I’m like, do it for the primary and the ADU at the same time and improve the SOC of the property simultaneously. That would be amazing. But I think investors really have to get a little bit more at the ground level, which is hard. I mean, you mentioned like five different cities that you’re building these in. You can’t be everywhere all at once. But we do have to be prepared to have sensible data driven responses to nimbyism, because it’s crazy.
Kristi Cirtwill Yeah, no, I mean, those are all good points. And yeah, maybe it would impact the street a little bit if there’s one or two extra cars out there all the time. But other than that, I think it’s a great thing for tenants. Well, here, here’s something I did just this week, to be considerate of everybody. So, I got a property. And I thought, okay, instead of just like rushing out and building an ADU and a JDU and a second unit, let me just put a little team together. So, I got my architect over there. My contractor, another investor, who’s pretty savvy when it comes to building in design, a realtor I’ve worked with for a long time. And a couple who were actually had searched for a long time in this particular city for a rental unit. So, I had like, I didn’t get any neighbors. So, maybe I should have thought of that. But I thought, Okay, I have a little small team. Let’s brainstorm what makes sense to do back here. Let’s just not slop together. Let’s put some thought into it. So, that’s what I’m trying to do going forward if I’m going to build more of these.
Aaron Norris Yeah, especially with SB 9. And you’re talking about maybe installing four units. That’s, that’s a big difference in a current R-1. Lot. That’s a that is a big change. And that can change parking and all that kind of stuff. That’ll be very interesting, because I’m sure that nimbyism…
Kristi Cirtwill
…was gonna get the pencil too. Oh, yeah, yeah, well, that’s the other thing. It’s like, if you’re going to build three more units, but then your value is only a certain amount, you know, why not just go down the street and buy a Fourplex is already built, save yourself the hassle and kind of, you know.
Aaron Norris It’s not like you’re leaning more towards JDU because of the cost to rent comparison, is that fair to say?
Kristi Cirtwill Well, you could still, so you can have ADUs and second unit up to 1200 square feet.
Aaron Norris Yeah.
Kristi Cirtwill In some cities, and so and a junior ADU can only be up to 500 square feet, and it’s got to be already existing part of the house. So, I probably wouldn’t do JDU because even if you do, JDU, you’re supposed to live there. And I’m already you know, I’m tired of moving.
Joey Romero Have you done any other than California? Like in any other states? Are you investing in all states?
Kristi Cirtwill No, no.
Joey Romero We got to ask Aaron.
Aaron Norris Yeah.
Joey Romero We’re building in Florida. Are going to put some ADUs out there?
Aaron Norris Yeah. It’s not a thing of Florida right now. But I have seen in Portland, Maine. While I was, I think it was Portland, Maine. So, I saw some talk about ADUs on the on the East Coast. Of course, Oregon, and Washington been talking about it. It’s not a unique experience, we need more housing stock. And this is a very creative way to get around it. I mean, the land cost and the government costs are just insane. Obviously, in California, if you’re building below 750 square feet, it also comes with, with a lot less government impact fees, they’re not supposed to charge you. And I really like and I don’t know, if you’ve experienced this, I really like ADU laws because there’s a 60 day timeline. If you submit a complete application, it’s only, the city is only supposed to have 60 days to turn that around. In theory.
Kristi Cirtwill In theory.
Aaron Norris In theory, have you experienced that?
Kristi Cirtwill Well, in theory, yeah. So, I think, I think a better key is to actually figure out who’s sort of the, the pro investor planners out there. Because I mean, you know, City of Los Angeles is just a nightmare that you just spin your wheels, trying to figure out who you’re supposed to be dealing with. And you know, but if you can get like some of the smaller cities, I think there could be a benefit to working with them. Because you get to know the planter, you get to know the guy or girl proving these ADUs. And they can move along a little faster. So, that’s, I mean, not that you have the luxury to be able to do that with every city or that you end up getting house you want to build an ADU in. But yeah, sometimes it’s more streamlined and then, you know, COVID they put everything online to try to speed things up and it actually slowed everything down even more. So, it is what it is. If you want to build in California and do anything here you just have to know you. There’s just going to be frustrations when it comes to city stuff.
Aaron Norris Now, I remember I know what the last conversation I had on the data driven podcast, the PropertyRadar, we specifically talked about your LA project and the last time we interviewed you in the Northwest was back in 2019. And I forget if it came up, but you had a project in LA where you’re trying to do a lot split. Can you update us on that project?
Kristi Cirtwill Yeah, there’s no update there, Aaron.
Aaron Norris Oh, no! Really?
Kristi Cirtwill There’s no update.
Aaron Norris Oh!
Kristi Cirtwill There’s no update. So, it took so, so I’ve had plans submitted since November 2018, 2018. And the first part of that, and I’m sure I did many things wrong, you know, so I’ve learned sort of how to navigate a little better. But first part of that was dealing with each pause. So, if you’ve ever dealt with the historical, I mean, and I get it, like I get dealing with them, because they do try to, you know, keep the integrity of some of these houses. So I get it. But it just the the process is just so slow and inefficient, that there’s not a fast way of going about it.
Aaron Norris So, what have you done with that project? I mean, it’s so, so single family house on how big is the lot then?
Kristi Cirtwill Well, the lot so I was splitting that before SB 9 existed. So, I already had that underway. And it’s over 13,000 square feet and it met the width and the length. So, everything you know, I felt there was a good I would buy the property because there’s a good chance I can get it done. And I will but you know, building and splitting the lots and streetlights apparently I have to put in and rain barrels the Lord like I don’t even know where I’m going to put all these rain barrels. They want rain barrels.
Aaron Norris They want rain barrels?
Kristi Cirtwill Yes, yes. There’s so, there’s just all these things. So, anyway, it’s due to part , partly my inexperience but you know, will who get to the finish line. And it’s funny because actually, I only have so after I split a lot. I’ll have one main house and one ADU. And now I’m thinking well, should I go back to the drawing board? Because technically I can split that again and have four more units. But anyway, I’m not sure what to do. I think I’ll just keep going to the finish line and…
Joey Romero All right, that’s gonna do it for this week’s episode of The Norris Group Real Estate Radio show and podcast. Please be sure to tune in next week and catch part two of our interview with real estate investor Kristi Cirtwill. Thank you.
Narrator For more information on hard money, loans and upcoming events with The Norris Group, check out thenorrisgroup.com. For information on passive investing with trust deeds, visit tngtrustdeeds.com.
Aaron Norris The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.