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Updated over 9 years ago, 05/02/2015
Hello from SF Bay Area....
Hello all...I've been reading BP for a while and joined about a week ago. My wife and I live and work in the middle of Silicon Valley. We are originally from Texas and we own a SFR in Las Vegas that is rented (with a story)...more about that at a later time. We are currently finishing renovation on the home we live in, and I have extensive experience with remodeling, renovations and landscaping.
My wife Tammy is a legal asst in a worldwide law firm, and I work as a Emergency Room nurse.
I am more of a novice in RE investing and have been studying for quite some time...but have trouble pulling the trigger at times...paralysis by analysis. While Tammy is very new to the arena.
We just wanted to say hello and that we hope our experience will add to the community at large and hope to learn from all of you as well.
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Hi James,
Thanks for your reply. We are excited to be part of BP...even caught my wife reading the website last night...so hot....lol.
Right now we are exploring our options. Vegas has had so much appreciation recently that I wonder how good of a deal we would be able to get at this point.
When we originally got that property 3 years ago, I really wanted to buy more than one, but I talked myself out of it....obviously the second me should have listened to the first me. Live and learn...but what a missed opportunity.
Do you (or your company) represent or primarily own property there? Or are you trying to expand to that area?
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Originally posted by @Joel G.:
Hi James,
Thanks for your reply. We are excited to be part of BP...even caught my wife reading the website last night...so hot....lol.
Right now we are exploring our options. Vegas has had so much appreciation recently that I wonder how good of a deal we would be able to get at this point.
When we originally got that property 3 years ago, I really wanted to buy more than one, but I talked myself out of it....obviously the second me should have listened to the first me. Live and learn...but what a missed opportunity.
Do you (or your company) represent or primarily own property there? Or are you trying to expand to that area?
We don't have anything going on in Vegas. I was just curious too see what oyu had going on. We stick to Cleveland Ohio.
Welcome to BP Joel! The site is a great place to pick up information and the pod casts are awesome for those long drives.
I just had a San Jose meetup last week and if you sign up for the meetup group, you get notified on the next meetup. We have some notable names such as @Account Closed@J. Martinthat come out regularly. If you can make it to SF tonight, J has a meetup with 60+ people in attendance!
Hi Joel, I used to manage a 26 unit building in Santa Clara. If I can be of help with dealing with tenants, I'm happy to.
Congrats on your adventure. I loved renting to grad students. If I had money to buy, I'd look at Chico or Arcata. Even during the crash, because we were next to a university (SCU), we always had a market for our units. If I was investing, I'd buy in a university town that had grad students. Then, market to the law school. Law students are great, especially if you can get them in their 1st year. They will normally stay at least 3 years and they're quiet and pay and don't cause damage.
I also had a referral system where I'd give my tenants $100 rent credit if I rented to someone they referred. They'd refer more law students to me. I often had a waiting list.
Just food for thought. I am retired and have no skin in the game anymore. I wish you and your wife great success!
@JamesWise
Gotcha. When my mother retired 3 years ago, she no longer wanted to live in the desert...lol.
She was in Yuma Arizona at the time...So, I guess, Las Vegas seemed a much cooler environment...lol. Anyway we wanted to buy property there anyway and she could not afford to live there without some help.
So we purchased a SFR in a nice neighborhood B+/A- and felt we did well on it. She has been living there until recently when she became ill and had to move in with us. We only "rent" it to her for the expenses involved and she does not want it to go onto the rental market yet...still "her house". So meanwhile the place sits empty, but the bills are paid. No cash flow but no loss either.
We've done some minor improvements on it while she has lived there and are considering fixing it up as a vacation rental...but don't know how advisable that is in a place like Vegas.
The home has had great appreciation in the recent past and our only regret is that I didn't try harder to get at least 2 more like it....they were everywhere at the time we bought it.
Welcome Joel!
As you probably already know, this is a great site. Members really help each other out.
Raul.
Welcome Joel...
If you need any insight to the Bay Area, lmk... grew up here and been flipping here for a while... Good luck in Sunnyvale though, especially in the Cupertino school district.. have an extra Million? lol...
Originally posted by @Johnson H.:
Welcome to BP Joel! The site is a great place to pick up information and the pod casts are awesome for those long drives.
I just had a San Jose meetup last week and if you sign up for the meetup group, you get notified on the next meetup. We have some notable names such as @Account Closed@J. Martinthat come out regularly. If you can make it to SF tonight, J has a meetup with 60+ people in attendance!
Thank you so much for you kind welcome!
Wow...such a nice invitation...I won't be able to make it this evening but would certainly make every attempt to get to future meet ups! We live in Sunnyvale, so the San jose mtg might work better, but the SF mtg would be a great opportunity to meet as well.
I look forward to meeting you in person in the near future!
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Hi Joel, I used to manage a 26 unit building in Santa Clara. If I can be of help with dealing with tenants, I'm happy to.
Congrats on your adventure. I loved renting to grad students. If I had money to buy, I'd look at Chico or Arcata. Even during the crash, because we were next to a university (SCU), we always had a market for our units. If I was investing, I'd buy in a university town that had grad students. Then, market to the law school. Law students are great, especially if you can get them in their 1st year. They will normally stay at least 3 years and they're quiet and pay and don't cause damage.
I also had a referral system where I'd give my tenants $100 rent credit if I rented to someone they referred. They'd refer more law students to me. I often had a waiting list.
Just food for thought. I am retired and have no skin in the game anymore. I wish you and your wife great success!
Thanks for your warm welcome!
I worked in Marysville in their Emergency Department when we first moved to Northern California...what a wild time...crazy ER. Our kids were in high school at the time and we would go to Chico at different times for tournaments/games....loved driving through the orchards on the way up...georgeous part of the world!
I would love to explore renting to grad students...seems the right group of students that are still dependent enough on mom/dad that they may be right for premium rents, but on a professional track that might help keep their feet on the ground when it comes to get together and whatnot. GREAT IDEA and I will definitely keep it in mind as we move forward!
The referral idea is also a super idea as well. If they were good tenants they likely would refer similar! And a waiting list of good tenants...you should write a book!
Thanks again for your good luck wishes and keep enjoying that retirement.
Originally posted by @Raul Pedrozo:
Welcome Joel!
As you probably already know, this is a great site. Members really help each other out.
Raul.
You couldn't be more right, Raul!
Thanks for your welcome and please feel free to contact me if I can ever do anything for you as well!
Originally posted by @Joel G.:
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Hi Joel, I used to manage a 26 unit building in Santa Clara. If I can be of help with dealing with tenants, I'm happy to.
Congrats on your adventure. I loved renting to grad students. If I had money to buy, I'd look at Chico or Arcata. Even during the crash, because we were next to a university (SCU), we always had a market for our units. If I was investing, I'd buy in a university town that had grad students. Then, market to the law school. Law students are great, especially if you can get them in their 1st year. They will normally stay at least 3 years and they're quiet and pay and don't cause damage.
I also had a referral system where I'd give my tenants $100 rent credit if I rented to someone they referred. They'd refer more law students to me. I often had a waiting list.
Just food for thought. I am retired and have no skin in the game anymore. I wish you and your wife great success!
Thanks for your warm welcome!
I worked in Marysville in their Emergency Department when we first moved to Northern California...what a wild time...crazy ER. Our kids were in high school at the time and we would go to Chico at different times for tournaments/games....loved driving through the orchards on the way up...georgeous part of the world!
I would love to explore renting to grad students...seems the right group of students that are still dependent enough on mom/dad that they may be right for premium rents, but on a professional track that might help keep their feet on the ground when it comes to get together and whatnot. GREAT IDEA and I will definitely keep it in mind as we move forward!
The referral idea is also a super idea as well. If they were good tenants they likely would refer similar! And a waiting list of good tenants...you should write a book!
Thanks again for your good luck wishes and keep enjoying that retirement.
It's funny, but it was the crash that made us re-visit renting to students. The owner was adamant about not renting to students - and I agree that undergrads are high-maintenance and destructive as a rule. So, I investigated how to target the grad students and voila!
They also make for great resident managers, by the way. So, if you had a multi-family building with 16 or more units, where you're required to have an on-site manager, consider asking a law student to do it for free rent. We did this when I retired - hired one of our law student tenants, who by then was a lawyer. He did it for just free rent, while working his full-time job. So, the owner got a free lawyer, too, as his manager LOL!
Another thing to consider - if the property is close enough to the university, it's quite possible the university will eventually want to buy it from you. One of the reasons I chose to retire when I did, was because SCU was coming around more and more often asking the owner to sell. I didn't want to end up with no job and nowhere to live all of a sudden (I was the resident manager). When the owner wants to sell, he has a very motivated buyer in the university, which now owns most of the property all around the owner's building.
Hi Joel,
Welcome to Biggerpockets. This site is truly a real estate goldmine. Have fun digging. I'd like to share one of my favorite quotes from Master Oogway "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it." I have seen this played out in real life over and over for investors who were chasing appreciation or cash-flow. Hope to meet you at a meet-up one of these days.
@Account Closed, you just gave away our business model. :>) I can't argue with you there. The quality of tenants there is top notch. We have been trying to break into the SCU housing market, but it's so tough. Any tips?
Hi Joel,
Welcome! You'll find that a lot of people are really helpful here! I've made a lot of great contacts and it's helping my investing biz a lot. Love the tag line. So of course they mean Diphenhydramine... ?? LOL. I was guessing you worked ER. Rideout Hospital? We have a contract there (my other full time biz is in ambulance transportation.) Anyhow. Good luck to you and Tammy.
Best,
Makenzie
Originally posted by @Mike Jones:
Welcome Joel...
If you need any insight to the Bay Area, lmk... grew up here and been flipping here for a while... Good luck in Sunnyvale though, especially in the Cupertino school district.. have an extra Million? lol...
Lol...we are both most definitely in the middle of it all here in Silicon Valley. Would love to hear more about your flipping business. And I'm always interested in learning as much as I can about anything that concerns houses/construct/reno/etc. and willing to swing a hammer to prove it!
As far as us flipping in this area, I just don't think we have the game for that...at least in this area...right now...but we are hopeful to do similar things in smaller markets or at least more affordable markets at some point in the future.
Thanks again for your welcome and the laugh!
Why is it tough? I'd need to know that.
If you have a property within walking distance, you're in like Flynn, as they say. If you're not within walking distance, then you need to be cheaper than the options that are closer.
To target law student specifically, contact the law school and ask for the housing director. Ask her if you can advertise to her law students. She actually advertised my vacancies on the law school facebook page!
SCU also has their own off-campus housing webpage where you can list your vacancies, and they even let you choose the option of just grad students, which is pretty funny, because technically, there'd be a possible issue with age discrimination, but hey, their website lets you choose just grad students, so why not use it?
http://www.scu.edu/studentlife/life_scu/living/off...
There is a law school and a business school with grad students at SCU. I found the business school students to be more transient for some reason. So, I focused on law students.
I used month-to-month agreements, but they would still usually stay at least 3 years. If they intended to take the bar exam in CA, they'd even stay 4 years. Some became lawyers and continued renting from us. We rented mainly small studios a little under market, so it was a cheap place to stay and pay off their student loans or save up to buy a house, etc.
I also let them sublet their apartments over the summer if they asked, because they often get internships out of the area, sometimes out of the country. I'd tell them they were still responsible for the rent, and I'd give them written permission to have a long-term guest over the summer. I would leave the deal between them to themselves. I'd normally have them give me checks for each month they'd be gone, and I'd just deposit them each month. Their deal with their "guest" was between them. They often made a profit on their subletter, LOL! And they usually rented to law students who were in campus housing, and had to vacate the campus housing for the summer.
If you need any more info I can help you with, feel free to DM me.
Originally posted by : Sue Kelly
It's funny, but it was the crash that made us re-visit renting to students. The owner was adamant about not renting to students - and I agree that undergrads are high-maintenance and destructive as a rule. So, I investigated how to target the grad students and voila!
They also make for great resident managers, by the way. So, if you had a multi-family building with 16 or more units, where you're required to have an on-site manager, consider asking a law student to do it for free rent. We did this when I retired - hired one of our law student tenants, who by then was a lawyer. He did it for just free rent, while working his full-time job. So, the owner got a free lawyer, too, as his manager LOL!
You are a great resource for folks Sue!
Have you possibly started a blog yet about this subject...your experience and knowledge on this very subject would be one that I personally would follow.
Stable, gentle renters are a commodity that should be valued at all cost in this game...and your insight on the subject has already got me thinking about our property in Las Vegas as UNLV has recently received approval to move out north of the city...right around the corner from our house!! (Whether they actually move their or not is another subject...but the skinny is that the builders are already gearing up to build 5000-7000 additional homes in the area...but that's just rumor ;)
I have sent a collegue request to you and would love to hear more about your experiences...seriously Sue you should start a blog about this subject!
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Hi Joel,
Welcome to Biggerpockets. This site is truly a real estate goldmine. Have fun digging. I'd like to share one of my favorite quotes from Master Oogway "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it." I have seen this played out in real life over and over for investors who were chasing appreciation or cash-flow. Hope to meet you at a meet-up one of these days.
@Account Closed, you just gave away our business model. :>) I can't argue with you there. The quality of tenants there is top notch. We have been trying to break into the SCU housing market, but it's so tough. Any tips?
That quote is so true...and made me smile!
Thank you for your welcome message and I look forward to meeting you.
Originally posted by @Makenzie Kelly:
Hi Joel,
Welcome! You'll find that a lot of people are really helpful here! I've made a lot of great contacts and it's helping my investing biz a lot. Love the tag line. So of course they mean Diphenhydramine... ?? LOL. I was guessing you worked ER. Rideout Hospital? We have a contract there (my other full time biz is in ambulance transportation.) Anyhow. Good luck to you and Tammy.
Best,
Makenzie
Hi Mackenzie.
Thank you so much for your welcome!
The "D" drug I meant was dilaudid...lol...but Benadryl (can't spell the generic...lol) works too! Yes Rideout was my home away from home when we lived there...such a great group of people to work with!! If you are in picking someone up just tell them that Joel Gallimore says hello and that he misses/loves them all.
Ambulance business in that area must keep you REALLY BUSY!!
We lived in Plumas lake and the kids went to school at Wheatland high school...absolutely one of the best times of our lives!!
There were lots of opportunities in the area as I remember...let me know if there is anything I can assist you with there.
Originally posted by @Joel G.:
You are a great resource for folks Sue!
Have you possibly started a blog yet about this subject...your experience and knowledge on this very subject would be one that I personally would follow.
Stable, gentle renters are a commodity that should be valued at all cost in this game...and your insight on the subject has already got me thinking about our property in Las Vegas as UNLV has recently received approval to move out north of the city...right around the corner from our house!! (Whether they actually move their or not is another subject...but the skinny is that the builders are already gearing up to build 5000-7000 additional homes in the area...but that's just rumor ;)
I have sent a collegue request to you and would love to hear more about your experiences...seriously Sue you should start a blog about this subject!
Aw, you're sweet. I think I just shared most of my vast knowledge LOL. But, I couldn't resist Googling to see if UNLV has a law school and voila! Shoot, if you could get a couple multi-family units, or a large building and convert it into tiny studios...
The building I rented was a WW II conversion. If you didn't know, the SF Bay Area had a severe housing shortage during WW II, and there are many large old buildings that were converted into apartments during that time. Most of our units (19 out of 25) were studios. Most of those were only about 250 square feet. But, students loved them because they didn't have to have roommates, and of course, we were across the street from the university.
But, even a large home where you rented out rooms would work. I think this would be higher maintenance than separate studios, but you shouldn't have trouble keeping either one full.
For summers, there is a market for short-term housing for students who come to the university for summer internships and they'll pay a premium for short-term housing, because normally their only other option is an expensive hotel.
Hmmmm, maybe I've turned your thread into my person blog LOL. I'll shut up now :-)
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Originally posted by @Joel G.:
You are a great resource for folks Sue!
Have you possibly started a blog yet about this subject...your experience and knowledge on this very subject would be one that I personally would follow.
Stable, gentle renters are a commodity that should be valued at all cost in this game...and your insight on the subject has already got me thinking about our property in Las Vegas as UNLV has recently received approval to move out north of the city...right around the corner from our house!! (Whether they actually move their or not is another subject...but the skinny is that the builders are already gearing up to build 5000-7000 additional homes in the area...but that's just rumor ;)
I have sent a collegue request to you and would love to hear more about your experiences...seriously Sue you should start a blog about this subject!
Aw, you're sweet. I think I just shared most of my vast knowledge LOL. But, I couldn't resist Googling to see if UNLV has a law school and voila! Shoot, if you could get a couple multi-family units, or a large building and convert it into tiny studios...
The building I rented was a WW II conversion. If you didn't know, the SF Bay Area had a severe housing shortage during WW II, and there are many large old buildings that were converted into apartments during that time. Most of our units (19 out of 25) were studios. Most of those were only about 250 square feet. But, students loved them because they didn't have to have roommates, and of course, we were across the street from the university.
But, even a large home where you rented out rooms would work. I think this would be higher maintenance than separate studios, but you shouldn't have trouble keeping either one full.
For summers, there is a market for short-term housing for students who come to the university for summer internships and they'll pay a premium for short-term housing, because normally their only other option is an expensive hotel.
Hmmmm, maybe I've turned your thread into my person blog LOL. I'll shut up now :-)
Not at all Sue. I feel like a sponge right now, and feel very lucky to have all of your knowledge available to soak up.
I was serious though about you starting a blog...one of the easy to start ones here on BP...where they provide the platform...all you gave to do (I assume) is to name it and start writing.
Your knowledge in this area is very valuable...and I'm not saying that just cause you're cute!
I have read so many articles on getting and keeping good tenants...that I feel your thoughts on the matter would be very well received.
If you want to start it but aren't sure what to write/how to start...then just pretend it's me that you are writing too and for...helping me figure out how and why to rent to grad students...it may not be the first blog on the subject...but with your wit and unique perspective on the subject, it'll probably stay busy, from time to time anyway.
You could call it the "Oh my god, Joel won't stop bugging me about starting a blog about renting to grad students" blog....just rolls off the tongue like honey...don't cha think?
Flipping land at the beginning of your real estate career is a low stakes way to learn about transactions and accumulate serious equity pretty quickly.
I started my company with $500 in 1999 and generated more than $20M to date without borrowing money or taking on equity.
I have a free ebook on my site. Feel free to take a look.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Originally posted by @Robert Musallam:
@Joel G. Welcome To BP!
As others have already said, TONS of great people and info here to help you learn whatever you're interested in!
See you around the forums!
Thanks Robert! Enjoying them, and learning from everyone already!
See you round!
Originally posted by @Jack Butala:
Flipping land at the beginning of your real estate career is a low stakes way to learn about transactions and accumulate serious equity pretty quickly.
I started my company with $500 in 1999 and generated more than $20M to date without borrowing money or taking on equity.
I have a free ebook on my site. Feel free to take a look.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Hello Steven,
Thank you for your feedback. I have never really considered land transactions...mainly because I know next to nothing about them...glad to hear that you have had such great success!
Tammy and I will definitely check into your ebook and poke around your site...thank you so much for the invitation!