Affordable Housing Solutions for Low-Income Renters in NC
Show summary
In this conversation, Darway Dalmeida shares his journey into real estate investment in North Carolina, focusing on sustainable housing solutions. He discusses innovative rental strategies that cater to affordability and flexibility, particularly through shared living arrangements. The conversation also delves into the integration of solar energy in housing, highlighting both the benefits and challenges faced by investors. Finally, Darway outlines his future projects aimed at community impact, including sober living facilities and veteran housing.
Key takeaways
- Rent by the room or bed with all utilities, internet, and furniture bundled into one price to reduce vacancy; Darway rents beds in Albemarle for $450 each, turning a house that would cash flow around $300 as a single-family rental into one generating $1,800 in rent against roughly $700 mortgage and under $1,000 in other costs.
- Apply solar tax credits and utility rebates directly to the cost of the system rather than reinvesting them elsewhere; Darway didn't do this in 2015-2016 and is still paying off an $18,000 solar balance that could have been paid off years ago using a $4,500 Duke Energy credit and about $7,000 federal credit.
- When renting a solar-equipped house, calculate the solar cost per month and build it into the rent so tenants pay a flat amount instead of a separate utility bill; Darway charges around $200-something per month this way.
- In North Carolina, solar systems stay tied to the grid; excess summer energy production is stored by the utility (Duke Energy) and credited back in winter, which can drop a $150 winter bill down to about $50.
- Buying contracts or properties without being in real estate yet can be costly: Darway describes a mistake that cost him $40,000 when a seller's price changed after another buyer made an offer, forcing him to renegotiate from $55,000 up to $81,000.
- Refinance and pull out only the excess equity above anticipated ARV to fund new purchases; Darway used $40,000 and $35,000 in excess appraisal value (properties appraised $35,000-$40,000 higher than expected) to buy an additional rental rather than withdrawing all available equity.
- Target shared/room-rental housing toward people on fixed incomes (disability, Social Security) or minimum-wage workers who can't afford full single-family rents, which Darway says fills units that would otherwise sit empty and reduces turnover and lost income.
In this episode
- 02:04Introducing Darway Dalmeida and North Carolina real estate
- 02:24How Darway got started: door-to-door sales to two properties
- 05:58Defining sustainable housing
- 06:03Charlotte rent costs and the shift to room rentals in Albemarle
- 09:41Rent numbers for rooms and small multifamily units
- 11:32Going green: solar, electrical, retrofitted windows
- 12:50Mistakes investors make with solar
- 16:24Solar battery storage and net metering with Duke Energy
- 18:11Upcoming projects: sober living and veteran housing
About the guest
Darway Dalmeida creates short-term and sustainable housing solutions in North Carolina, with properties in Charlotte and Albemarle. He got into real estate after buying two properties from a retiring seller, used a VA loan on his own home and a hard money/investment loan to fix up the rentals, and has since built a portfolio that includes room-by-room rentals and solar-retrofitted houses. He is a veteran and is now developing a sober living facility with a backup plan to convert it into veteran housing.
Listen to the audio
“I started renting them by room or double the room. And I don't have too many empty spaces because it's price right. When people move in and know they got one bill that cover everything, utility, light, internet. Everything they got in that one space.”
Darway Dalmeida
“My net worth left from 400,000 to 1.7 million in a year.”
Darway Dalmeida
“One thing that's constant, utility is always going up. So if I put a solar on a house, it's there for 30, 25 years, and my utility bill is cap.”
Darway Dalmeida
Questions answered in this episode
How can I make rental housing more affordable without losing cash flow?
Darway rents by the room or bed instead of as a single-family unit, bundling utilities, internet, and furniture into one price. In one Albemarle house he rents four beds at $450 each, generating $1,800 against a mortgage of about $700 and under $1,000 in other costs, nearly doubling his cash flow compared to renting it as a single-family home.
What happens when I rent a house as a single-family unit to minimum-wage or fixed-income tenants?
Darway found that in Albemarle, tenants paying $1,000-$1,100 as minimum-wage workers often couldn't keep up when their financial situation changed, leading to vacancies and lost income. Switching to room-by-room rentals with an all-inclusive price reduced turnover because tenants know exactly what they owe each month.
Is solar worth it for rental properties?
Darway says it's a long-term investment: credits for solar go away but utility costs keep rising, so a solar system locks in lower energy costs for 25-30 years. His biggest mistake was not applying the $4,500 Duke Energy credit and roughly $7,000 federal credit directly to his $21,000-$22,000 solar system cost in 2015-2016, leaving him still paying off an $18,000 balance years later instead of having it paid off.
How does net metering work with solar in North Carolina?
According to Darway, in North Carolina you can't get off the grid entirely. In summer when his solar system produces excess energy, Duke Energy stores that surplus and loans it back to him in winter, so instead of a $150 winter bill he might pay around $50; he was billed about $16 for the excess energy storage at one point.
How did Darway grow his net worth so quickly starting out?
He bought two properties under contract from a retiring seller for $55,000 and $45,000 (renegotiated to $81,000 for one after a competing offer), used a VA loan to buy his own home, refinanced the rental, and used a hard money/investment loan to fix up the properties. The homes appraised $35,000-$40,000 above the anticipated ARV, and he reinvested that excess equity into another rental, taking his net worth from $400,000 to $1.7 million in about a year.
What future projects is Darway working on?
He's converting a 3,445-square-foot house in Albemarle (five bedrooms, three and a half baths, two offices, conference hall) into a sober living facility, a project he hopes to complete around May 2026. If the sober living concept doesn't work out, he plans to convert it into veteran housing instead, since he is a veteran and has already spoken with the VA.
Resources and links
Full transcript
Darway Dalmeida (00:00)
I started renting them by room or double the room. And I don’t have too many empty spaces because it’s price right. When people move in and know they got one bill that cover everything, utility, light, internet.
Everything they got in that one space
Dylan Silver (01:52)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Darway Dalmeida, creates short-term and sustainable housing solutions in North Carolina. Darway, thanks for taking the time today.
Darway Dalmeida (02:04)
Thank you very much, Dylan.
Dylan Silver (02:07)
When we talk about ⁓ the Carolinas, I think this is, and North Carolina in particular, one of the best real estate markets in the country. And I’ve heard so many great things. But let’s back up to the beginning. How did you get started in investing in North Carolina?
Darway Dalmeida (02:24)
I stumble on this and I’m gonna keep it very brief. Okay, so I Normally do door-to-door sales. So I met up I was doing door-to-door sale and I at a time I save a lot of money me and my wife We’ll save a lot of money from working and we had little to do with the money. I’m working she working so I met a lady that was retiring moving to South Carolina and she
told me she didn’t want my product. was selling all the time, but she was going to sell me her properties, two properties. And within that time, I had a house already with the V loan and I needed to exit that house and get me the dream home that I’m not going to be looking for a normal house. So within that time, the lady that I met, I pulled her on a contract for one of her property, the duplex, because I wasn’t in the real estate at the time. And that particular mistake cost me 40 grand.
Like I said, I bought a contract. went to work two or three days later. She called me. Hey, Darway, someone knocked my door. We discussed the price of this house. So one was fifty five and the other one supposed to be forty five.
So the lady called me and said, hey, Darway, someone just knocked my door and give me a contract for eighty thousand. Do you still want this? So I ran there and put on a contract for eighty one thousand dollars. So now I had to contract. I needed a.
Get out of my house that I was in to get the dream home so I don’t fall into debt to income issue in the long run. So we found a house that we wanted. We refinance the other house that we put it on the rent. did our FHA loan. Use the VA loan on the dream home and then close on those two houses with a hard money lender. I don’t think guys that not got me the loan that was in your town, Texas loan on investment.
So long investment got me that long. I went through the process, fix it up. When I fix it up, the ARV at the time was 40,000 less than what was anticipated. So when I got done, it appraised each of them like 40 or 35,000 higher. So what I decided was instead of taking all the equity out, I took the 40,000 and the 35,000 that was in excess to the ARV.
So that money I went and bought another time home for rent. So now with, you years being, I have my primary house, the one I was living in, and three other houses. So my net worth left from 400,000 to 1.7 million in a year.
Dylan Silver (05:58)
Now, when we talk specifically about sustainable housing, which I know is something important to you, what does this term encompass? When we talk about sustainable housing, what does that term really mean?
Darway Dalmeida (06:03)
Mm-hmm.
It means in my opinion is me houses that Want affordable? green and Give a lot of flexibility. So into this society And I’m a guy that followed politics if you follow politics, most people know what happened in New York with the mayor is 80 % of what happened down there was folks can have for the major process and that’s stand-up living their housing
Cause I grew up in New Jersey. So I grew up like 40, 45 minutes from my heart, like New York. If you pay full $5,000 for rent, chances are something I’m not right. And that’s what happened in Charlotte. When I first moved into Charlotte, you bought a big old house for 160, 170,000.
There’s no house here that you can get in a nice era for less than 400,000. And when that happens, the mortgage will hire the single investor.
have to rent based on what they’re paying in mortgages. So what I started doing was I started anticipating how can I get folks to live within their means and not break the bank. And within that, I started testing it in another market, not Charlotte, a market called Albemarle. So I had three houses in Albemarle I used to rent as a single family. But because of the cost of living down there,
The folks were moving within a year they can’t afford it. So I started testing on hypothesis. I started putting beds in rooms. So one of the house I had, I put two beds in a room and furnished it, utility, everything in there. And what happened is it’s more like this shared living, but it’s you handling your stuff by yourself. So I rented each bed for 450 and
This is not just Charlotte. There’s a lot of people that did not work over the years, but on disability Social Security might be getting a thousand dollars, but I thought I was looking I rent a single place So now I got a guy there. He’s the happiest because he was homeless collecting a thousand dollars. He got 450 rent utility everything the guy buying computer now he buying all these little stuff because Offer his thousand dollars. He paid his 450. He don’t have to pay light bill water bill
got internet down, I got a TV for them. So I got four guys in there and they been there a long time and they paying the 450 each. What that does for me, it give me 1800. The cost of the mortgage is seven something. All other stuff is less than a thousand. So now instead of pocketing three, I’m pocketing 800 for now single house. I’ve done another one down there. I’m not making it seem as four because I think it’s just not too many people want to crop. So I did one bedroom.
One bearing and I ran a 750 750. I got a guy literally that’s in the military Overseas that retiring got one of the wrong. He just sent his money with cash after deposit cause he moving in February So those are because people look around they don’t care I had a guy from Colorado that moved down here for one of the house because he’s retired so if you price your house, right and you explain it to the folks with the vision
And it makes sense. People went by. People moving from New York, California.
Dylan Silver (09:41)
What are those units
renting for in those small multifamily?
Darway Dalmeida (09:45)
in those markets.
So that like the one I had is to bear one back. The most you could get from that is a thousand dollars or a thousand one hundred dollars. The era I have now. Now, with that thousand dollars, a thousand one hundred dollars we’re talking about, it’s called Albemarle, Albemarle, North Carolina. The folks that taking that thousand dollars might be a minimum wage worker.
Guess what? As soon as little stuff change, they can’t afford it. Now you got your house empty for another month or two to get someone in there, you lose an income. So in order for me to avoid all of those,
I started renting them by room or double the room. And I don’t have too many empty spaces because it’s price right. When people move in and know they got one bill that cover everything, utility, light, internet.
Everything they got in that one space
and I started doing this here less than a year and that’s what I’m taking Doing all the houses in album or with and if I get that done, might do it in Charlotte to four four year already in Charlotte
Dylan Silver (11:32)
Now you mentioned the sustainable housing and green. How are you going about the green aspect of these homes?
Darway Dalmeida (11:40)
The green house
fell to house. So there’s a, I’m not sure if most people have that in the area, but there’s a grant that if you move your house from say fossil fuel. So all my houses now are all electrical. Somebody have solar system. Somebody have the new retrofitted window for green spaces that keep the utility.
cheaper.
So I rectify most of the houses in a way where it saved me on energy prices. It’s expensive to do, but it saves your energy and it’s a long-term investment. So if once you do it, you might get a credit out here, but that credit goes away. But guess what? One thing that’s constant, utility is always going up. So if you guys, if I put a solar on a house is there for 30, 25 years.
and my utility bill is cap. And I got one of that in Charlotte and in Albemarle. I got a lot of those houses that I’m changing from the old stage to retrofit for sustainable energy use.
Dylan Silver (12:50)
Now, when we talk about ⁓ like solar in particular,
think investors have maybe a love-hate relationship with solar because there’s this idea of it doesn’t necessarily increase your property values. And then also, too, I’ve seen some investors say, well, I’m still having to pay an electric bill some of the year. I don’t really know how much this is benefiting. But of course, you’ve dove all in into solar. What mistakes do you see investors making?
or have you heard of investors making when it comes to solely?
Darway Dalmeida (13:21)
And this is a mistake I made okay Literally, I owe 16,000 on a solar on one of the house. I got When you I’m not in most city they gave you credit right and I got my solar system 2015 2016 around that time how’d I know what I know now I was gonna take all that credit and I just just apply it directly
to the solar cost and by this time it’s paid off. I got 4,500 from Duke Energy, another 7,000 from the federal government at the time. So just those two is over 10, 15,000. My solar system at the time was either 21 or 22,000. Had I applied that to that particular solar, now I owe 12 from 2016 to now, it’d be paid off.
But I took the money,
invested it somewhere else, and now I’m still stuck with $18,000 solar bill. But that’s not the issue. For me, the issue is you get the solar system and then look at how much you’re paying per month versus the next door neighbor how much they’re paying Duke Energy. Because I know the house that I got that’s rented with the solar, I put the solar cost into the rent.
So it’s like two something.
with unified bank. It’s too something. So I do the least. I tell them right away. say, hey, this is how I rent this house. But because you get a solar system, it lower your energy bill. This is how much the solar costs and I incorporate it in the rent. Long story short, I’m taking to just pay it off and get that out of the way. And I plan on doing that with my other houses, but some of the areas we got here,
does not have credit for solar system. It’s not a hit, light hit relationship. It’s more of a, you don’t see the value
right there until utility bills start going up. When I first moved in my house, my utility bill was like three something, $600 now. How to have solar would probably be less than that. But
it’s harder to explain to folks that just doing little investment don’t have multiple
TOOL
Dylan Silver (16:24)
Let
me ask you another solar question.
So I’ve seen, you know, for folks who have, let’s say a large array, but it might not be able to power the home all the time. If they pair the solar with a battery, would that potentially allow them to get more use from their solar system? Because it’s like storing the energy and it’s worth it.
Darway Dalmeida (16:31)
Mm-hmm.
Thank
Dylan Silver (16:48)
Because I know those batteries can be, you know, $10,000. Do you have any?
perspective on that, feedback on that.
Darway Dalmeida (16:53)
Mark
my neighbor has battery but he don’t even have so He got a generator battery for when stuff goes up and I talked to him now
I haven’t tried a battle with the solar system because even off Carolina you can’t get off the grid You have to stay on the grid many you gonna have
Dylan Silver (17:10)
Hmm.
Darway Dalmeida (17:12)
When I live out there because I’m telling you about that’s the one I refinance Before I the greenhouse. That’s the one I got a solo when I live there
summertime we get excess energy so it goes into Duke Energy’s grave and they will loan it to you during the winter time
so for example if you get excess energy you might get a bill for $16 back then for them storing your energy but then come winter time instead of your bill being $150 that excess energy will be loaned back to you and your bill might be 50 bucks
But that’s how it works here in North Carolina. I don’t know of other areas I haven’t applied that with a generator. Because I think the generator, what was explained to me is when you lose power, the generator kicks in to keep the solar working and all that stuff. I haven’t tried that particular stuff, so I don’t want to speculate.
Dylan Silver (18:11)
Now, we are coming up on time here though, Darway. Are there any new projects that you’re working on? And then also as well, what’s the best way for our audience to reach out to you?
Darway Dalmeida (18:14)
Mm-hmm.
⁓ let me, I got a couple of website. Okay. I got one. I’m working on a new project in Albemarle. It’s a 3,445 square feet house. I’m doing the most amount of room I can get out of the house without the city disturbing me. So I got one. It’s a bedroom, three and a half bath, two offices, conference hall.
Into that building and I promise to make that out of my head water So because I’m doing that I’m trying to get that to become a silver living I open a website and folks can go and check it out It’s called O C P N C dot O R G it stands for our community place N C dot R but I cut it short because people got short-term memory they would rather get us short. So it’s O C P
NC.org and on there you gonna land what I’m trying to do with this. I’m going to incorporate this with one of the bigger ⁓ sober living facility and if that works I’m going to get out another one in another city. If it doesn’t I will just convert the house to veteran living because I’m a vet and I already spoke to the VA but I want to try the sober living first. If it doesn’t I would just convert it to the VA.
But that’s 2026 goal and we should be concluding that year in May because we’re literally in the middle of concluding.
Dylan Silver (20:02)
Darway, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for coming on the show.
