504 D St. Petaluma CA, 94952. Looking for advice

Buying & Selling Real Estate
5yFollow

504 D St. Petaluma CA, 94952. Looking for advice

Aric Yuji HarrisPro Member
Member since 2020 · 15 posts · 6 votes
Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well.

My name is Aric Harris and I'm right now working on my Grandmother's house in Petaluma California, 504 D. St, Petaluma CA, 94952. After my grandmother died the house went to my aunt who allowed her daughter, my cousin, to stay as she helped take care of my grandmother for years.

Recently my aunt passed away and my family is moving ahead with the sale of the property. I'm currently working with my cousin on a two year lease.  My cousin lives in a detached carriage house that has been converted into a single studio unit while the main house is a duplex separated into an upper unit and a downstairs unit.

The current plan is to sell the property and allow my cousin two years to look for a place using her money from the sale. After two years she would need to move out irregardless. The home is an old Victorian style house in a historic part of town, but I was planning on doing a home inspection and appraisal to determine how much it should go for.

I'm still new and feeling my way in this and wanted to know if anyone could recommend any particular strategy or if you knew any agents that you could recommend that would be successful. Or maybe an agency or place I can go to for something like this.

I hope to hear from you soon and best of luck to you all!

0Reply
23 views

5 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Joseph SchommerPro Member
    Handyman · Brattleboro, VT · Member since 2019 · 82 posts · 46 votes
    5y

    @Aric Yuji Harris

    Hi Aric! I live in Petaluma and manage a few short term rentals here. It's a white hot market for STR if you wanted to go that route. It would more than pay your expenses on the property for years to come and probably cash-flow nicely. DM me if you want to connect or shoot some ideas around. Good luck!

    0Reply
  • Matt Devincenzo
    Investor · Clairemont, CA · Member since 2011 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    5y

    I'd suggest you try to figure out somewhere for your cousin to move to within a month or so of closing. Anyone purchasing is very unlikely to want to deal with a 'prior owner' or related resident. I was able to purchase my first duplex in CA for ~10% lower than any other comps because I was willing to let the owner stay for 6 months. So whatever buyer you get will be looking for an even greater discount most likely. 

    0Reply
  • Rick Trivedi
    Real Estate Broker · San Jose, Dublin CA and Florida · Member since 2017 · 165 posts · 48 votes
    5y

    @Aric Yuji Harris - Is the two year lease rent free or is with the market rent? By having another person live on the property, you are limiting your target audience only to the investors which generally means you will get bit lower than market price, since investors always look for a deal vs. the traditional home buyer. It also seems like the property is/was being rented, have you thought about just continuing to rent both stories and collect the rent instead of one large chunk of money which you then will potentially have tax implications on. Happy to help but there are a few unknowns. Would also recommend removing the address from the public forums.

    0Reply
  • Darius Ogloza
    Investor · Marin County California · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    5y

    Someone with my local knowledge can set me straight if I am wrong but down here in Marin duplexes do not fetch the kinds of prices single family homes do as the new breed of buyers we are seeing prefer not to share their living space with strangers. West Petaluma Victorians are amazing. Converting to a SFR may allow your family to fetch top dollar. I would consult at least 3 local agents up there - by local I mean agents who routinely sell on the West side of Petaluma.

    0Reply
  • Stephen Pearson
    Real Estate Agent · Sonoma County, CA (North Bay) · Member since 2020 · 8 posts · 4 votes
    5y

    Hi Aric,

    I'm a local Petaluma agent. In my experience most end users don't want to take on existing tenants, let alone someone with a 2 year lease. While this property could potentially be a nice income unit, it would also make a great primary or secondary residence. D St as you know is one of our most historic and prominent streets, along with B St, and this is easy walking distance to everything. 

    If your family is looking to get the highest dollar amount out of this sale then you'd want to sell the property vacant. I'd be shocked if anyone agreed to keep a tenant there on a 2 year lease, unless they planned on renting out the duplex portion, but you never know. In my opinion, in this current market, a vacant property would give you the biggest buyer pool and lead to the most profit.

    An appraisal will tell you what the appraiser thinks it's worth, but on the open market the real price will be determined by the buyers. I'd recommend interviewing a few agents and asking them to do a Comparative Market Analysis for you, in addition to the appraisal if you feel the need.

    I'd also recommend getting a home, roof and pest inspection. Old house, potentially a lot going on there. The most successful sales I've had and been seeing typically have all three of those reports up front. Being an older home from the late 1800s, you may want to have the sewer lateral inspected as well. Home Inspectors (North Coast Inspection Services), Pest Inspector (Doug's Bugs), Roof Inspection (Roof Doctors). HomeGuard does all 3 inspections as a package deal and are a bigger company, so they may have more availability. Rooter Man does sewer lateral inspections with the camera, etc. Hope this is helpful.

    Regards,

    Stephen Pearson

    Broker-Associate

    0Reply
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Log InJoin for Free