Improving rent-roll in Rent controlled property

[Nhi Nguyen]

Hello all BPers.

Happy New Year to all!  Hope everyone is bank-rolling lots of $$$ at new year already!  :D

I've been doing mostly flips, only some of buy-n-holds in the past 10 years (some SFHs, and some MFs, all in CA). This year my main plan is to finish all my flips, pull out all equity (cash out or HELOC) to mainly focus on buy and hold MFs.

I know most will advice to go elsewhere other than CA.  I hear you.  For this thread though, my questions are on some properties I'm looking at in Northern CA.

1) What's the best methods (and associated costs) you've been using to buy-out tenants, specially in the Bay Area?  

2) For current MTM tenants, how to go about having them paying for utilities?  Right now it's not separately metered yet.  Can we just add individual meters and require everyone to pay separately?  

3) Please share your experience on remodel cost pass-through.  

Thanks much.