My gifted brother-in-law Lauro Pedraza was invited to show one of his engravings at an event in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Here is how it is described:
76 artistas y sus creaciones gráficas en exposición. Están cordialmente invitados a la III Edición de la Reseña de la Gráfica Nuevo León – 2023. Inauguración el jueves 9 de noviembre a las 7:00 p.m. Museo de Guadalupe N.L. Mtro. Israel Cavazoa Garza
Lauro is getting invited to these kinds of events more and more often and at a higher and higher level. He did the above ink drawing of our son, Christian, when he finished his Ph.D. at Arizona State. I hoping to commission him to make it into an engraving for our house in San Pedro.
I went to check out the house we are remodeling on the top level of streets on Cerro de las Mitras in San Pedro. When I went to the street view, it showed a new image of the house (taken June 2023) that includes some of the work Lynn has done on it. Pretty cool. He plans to start working on it a lot more now that the apartments a few blocks down the hill are almost complete.
AFTER: View from the street toward the front of the house
Work is coming to an end at the apartment building, so the bulk of Lynn’s team has moved up the hill to work on the second remodel project. The first step was to clean up a large amount of debris created during the destructive part of the project. The view on the right is how it is now, after cleaning up the mess. Lynn says he can have it livable by December if we want to be in San Pedro for the holidays. That would be nice, but I am not holding my breath. It might be more realistic to hope for the holidays, but plan for something in the spring. Lynn has one big structural headache to solve to do the things he wants to do with the house. After that, he believes this remodel is profoundly more simple than the apartments. Really looking forward to seeing this project move forward now.
Work on the remodel of the house on the hill in San Pedro is about to accelerate. That work has been on somewhat of a hiatus due to the need to finish the work on the apartment remodel down below (but still with a great view). With that coming to an end, Lynn has started sending some of his team. Lynn has all the lease paperwork prepared and a list of potential tenants who want to rent the apartments, so he is checking credit, references, and all that stuff with the hope of getting people into the apartments sometime in November. After that, all of his people will be focused on getting enough of the house on the hill ready for Lorena and I to head there for a stay. There are four living areas: 1) Basement, 2) main floor, 3) second floor, and 4) an entertainment terrace on the roof called an azotea with restrooms, a kitchen, and a spectacular view. The hope is to finish the main floor and the azotea first so we can start visiting there while the rest of the place is finished.
Lynn continues to work hard on the apartments in San Pedro. He planted a two trees in front of the building a couple of weeks ago. It rained pretty hard for several days last week which helped the trees a bunch. He has been putting a lot of work into the entertainment area on the terrace at the back of the house and in completion of the last two apartments, also at the back of the house. He did not send me pictures of those, though, because he wants us all to see it after it is finished. I will be talking to him about the business aspects of the development a little bit later today. He has a long waiting list of people who want to rent one or more of the apartments, but he also has a serious investor who is evaluating whether to buy the place or not. He said he would love to have it full of renters before he buys it so the rent/buy decision is not one we have to consider.
As we move through the final phases of construction and on to rental and sales (will explain in a second) on the first Mexican house, I thought it would be good to review where we are with the project. The picture on the top-left is what we started with. The other three is where we are now. Initially, we were going to convert this into a house where we could live, but then we found an even better house farther up the side of the mountain with a better view, so we decided to convert the first house into an apartment four-plex. Lynn then figured out a way to add another two apartments at the back of the house with an entertainment terrace and an azotea or rooftop sitting and entertainment area. So now it is a six-plex with a lot more appeal.
Our initial plan was to sell the apartments then use the proceeds to buy another property to remodel. We thought, if we could not sell it immediately, we could fill it with renters, then sell it. Our thinking was that it would be attractive to investment buyers if the apartments were already producing income when they bought it. The plan has not changed much. We have been on hold because a potential buyer wants to look at, but lives in Guadalajara and has had a struggle getting free. The good news is that he wants renters and was pleased with the idea that we could provide them. Lynn already has a list of potential renters he is vetting that is much longer than the number of available apartments.
Lynn already has his eye on another property for the next project. We hope we can get the first property sold soon enough to take advantage of it.
Work on the house on the hill in San Pedro continues, but has slowed down pretty dramatically due to work on Casa 1. We have a potentially buyer for #1. If that falls through, the plan is to fill it with renters and then sell it to someone who likes that kind of investment. We really do not want to be landlords other than short term. In the meantime, the weather has turned fabulous (not to hot). The views are nothing short of spectacular from the balcony today.
The first house in Mexico is officially on the market. We have a lot of interest to both purchase the house or rent apartments in it (of which there are now six). One party wants to rent the whole thing. We have another house identified just a few blocks away that we would like to purchase and remodel if we can sell the first one in time.
We have learned much about how to go about this. The key to all of it, of course, is sufficient capital to keep the builders working at a reasonable pace, but there are a lot of other things, too. How to buy a house suitable for a project like this requires knowledge of the neighborhood. What seems like a good deal, might not really be that good if there is insufficient parking, drainage problems, recalcitrant neighbors, or some other defect. It is not like buying a house in the US.
We are excited about moving forward to the next project. It all depends on selling the first project first. If things come together and we get the house we want, we will almost certainly just tear the thing down and start from scratch. Location and price are what makes it an attractive property for us, not the current structure. If we do not get that one, there are other options.
This post is an update because I have not written for a long time. We continue to make progress on both our little places down in Mexico. As a reminder, we bought the first one because my lawyer brother-in-law who also has a construction business ran into a very good deal for a house with a nice view on the less affluent side of the valley that passes through San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo Leon Mexico. Right about when he had finished up the demolition and cleanup, a deal came up for another great place on the last street with houses further up Sierra Las Mitres, the mountain where both of the houses are located. At that point, we decided to turn the first house into a small apartment complex and build out the one up on the hill for ourselves when we stay in Mexico with Lorena’s mother Conchita.
That was quite a while ago. The apartments are almost finished. At first, we were going to stop with four apartments and an azotea (grilling and entertainment area on the roof), but Lynn, the lawyer, figured out a way to add an additional two apartments for six total and an additional azotea on a roof at the back of the house. Construction continues, but we are in the process of getting the apartments appraised and hope to put it on the market soon. The picture at the left is the appearance of the apartments from the street. The one below is the view of the mountains on the other side of the valley from the second azotea that will be poured in the the next few days.
There is a lot of work going on at the house further up the mountain, too. Most of the demolition is complete, electrical and plumbing infrastructure has been add, and new stairways to the basement, second floor, and azotea are in process. I will save a description of our progress on that house for another post, but Lynn sent me a video of the valley from the balcony at the back of the house that I thought was nice, so I included it. Construction on the new Tesla Giga-Factory is planned to start in a few months. We are about 15 minutes away and there is a good chance we will be able to see it from the azotea which is higher than the balcony from which the below video was captured.
Since this is my first post since before the first of the year, I thought I should start with a high level update. A couple of big efforts are coming to an end, God willing, before the end of this year. Hopefully that will give me more time to do things like write in this blog. I will start with a post on each of the following over the next week or so. I might disappear for a few days due to travel and finishing up the PhD work and house remodels, but that should not take much to complete.
The first draft of my dissertation has been submitted to my thesis advisor and a time and date has been set for my defense—June 8, 2023 at 10:00am. When that is complete, the expectation is that all I will have left are some changes to the dissertation which will leave me nothing left to do other then apply for and walk in the graduation ceremony and hooding on December 15.
The first house has been turned into a six unit apartment building which is in the process of being appraised before we put it onto the market. When the apartments are sold, my role in our little business down in Mexico will decrease a good bit because there will be resources to buy another place and remodel it without any input from me. That just leaves the finishing of our house higher on the mountain where we hope to live at least part of the year.
That leaves retirement. Right now, God willing, I hope not to have to retire for at least 2-3 more years. It is really rewarding work with good stress as opposed to the kind that makes one want to hide from the world, I am working with friends, and I can work from anywhere.
The red box in the image marks an area of the ceiling of the main floor of the house that used to be open to the second floor. Lynn is filling that area with a heavily reinforce concrete and Styrofoam placa that will increase the size of the room above. The second image shows the same staircase and placa from the side.
Lynn continues to make great progress on the house up on the hill. All of the demolition for the area in the front of the property which is planned for a garage on the bottom floor and the master bedroom (with a balcony toward the street) on the top floor. There is a lot of work in progress inside the house that I will try to report on in a subsequent post.
In the meantime, we commissioned a painting of the Portland Head Lighthouse Christian took us to see on a day trip to Portland, Maine when we visited last summer. Tío Lauro is putting the finishes touches on it now. When it is complete we will have him help us find an appropriate frame and hang it in the house on the hill. We hope to commission two or three more pieces for this property and convince Lauro to come and do some paintings of the views from the house.
I haven’t written for quite awhile so decided I would do a general update on the house and then write a little on my “retirement” PhD. Both houses (#1 and #2) are moving along slowly (that was expected), but nicely. The only thing left to finish the house conversion to apartments is the finishing of the fifth and last apartment and the azotea (roof entertainment area with a grill and a great view). The pictures in this post are of the demolition of the house up on the mountain that we plan to keep. It is really amazing how much the whole space has opened up, both in the garage/entry area and the first floor. We are poised for big progress in the next few weeks.
As for the PhD project, I had a long talk with my professor this week. He tells me that I need to focus only on finishing up now. The things I have left are two classes (one is halfway complete), the writing of my third technical journal article, the writing of my dissertation, and my oral dissertation defense. That is what I have left. I cannot wait to be done.
This is the before and after of the area that is planned to be the garage with the master bedroom above it. The third image is what the back side of the wall looked like. Actually, it had a full bathroom there previously, but the walls were knocked down before the picture was taken.
About half of the demolition is now complete and cleaned up on the half of the second floor that faces the valley. The plan is to replace the balustrade with glass and a very sturdy aluminum rail. The beam at the top of the opening leading to the balcony is a support beam so we are working with a structural designer to find a way to remove it or, worst case, leave a 5-6 inch beam above the opening and add a long horizontal window above it. The entire opening is planned to be four sheets of thick, tinted glass. The outside two are to be fixed and the inner two are sliding doors. The bottom image is some of the stuff that was removed to open the place up.
Work started today on the second house. It is a lot higher up the hill so it has a better view. We want to take advantage of the view by completely removing the current balcony (shown to the left). I will be replaced with a thick glass, 3 ft. high muro con barandal. The second image shows the wall across from the balcony openings. That wall will be completely removed and replaced with ceiling to floor glass walls and a doors. This glass area will have to have some thin, unobtrusive vertical stripes or hanging strings to prevent bird hits, but the idea is to open this up as much as possible both for lighting and to expose the view. This is going to go pretty slowly as resources allow. Of course, if we are able to sell the other house that we converted to apartments lower on this same hill, we can use some of the resources to speed up the changes. Lynn is planning to use the house (above) as his office, so we are hoping that will allow him to keep the focus on the changes there.
Lorena and I ran down to Mexico for a few days to see family and visit the house projects we are doing there. This is the first time I have been back since the pandemic. It is amazing to me how easy it is to forget how good the cuisine is in this part of the world. The picture was taken yesterday afternoon in Tío Lauro’s atelier. It is a truly beautiful setting and the improvements he has made since we were here last are incredible. Lauro has a lot of work left to do, but you can see where he is going with the place now in a way that was not so evident before. The other thing about the place we like is all the fruit trues he planted in the garden behind the house that are bearing fruit. It is a little piece of paradise.
