All Forum Posts by: Andrew Muff

See my response to your other version of this post. Can you delete this one?

@Ryan Wamsat

Hey Ryan, not sure where you live. But in Oakland and San Francisco, which have some of the most draconian rent control laws, no-fault basically means the tenant didn't violate one of about 8 reasons that a landlord is allowed to terminate. The main one is failure to pay rent. But also there are others such as damaging the unit, causing a nuisance, etc. But if you are terminating because you want to move in, or you just don't like them anymore, or you want to fix up the place, those are all no-fault. In that case, yes, you will need to pay the tenant.

I'm actually hoping this law goes into effect because as of today CAR negotiated it down to just one month maximum payment. Which means, now I'm assuming state law still supersedes city law, that instead of having to pay 10-20x months rent to get someone out for no-fault eviction, it's now only 1 month.

Yes, it really does cost $8000 minimum in Oakland to get someone out, and in SF it very quickly goes to many 10s of thousands. Having to pay a tenant $200k plus is not unheard of there.

Thanks @Angelou Masters! The program says I needed to pull permits within 90 days of purchase. But I can certainly go do that now and hope for the best.

This was in Oakland? What was the inspection process like? I can't imagine any building, let alone one built in 1926 (mine) to not have an inspector salivating at all the code violations.

How old was your property @K Khanna?

Has anyone received a notice from the city of Oakland regarding Oakland Municipal Code (Chapter 8.58)?

http://solar.oaklandnet.com/iop

Apparently if a property had a notice of default anytime in the last 11 years, they can go after you for a fee and an inspection to review any building violations.

Please let me know if anyone here has had to deal with this. The property I purchased 6 months ago had a notice of default in 2008 but was never foreclosed on. Apparently that counts. But instead of going after the then current owner whom I bought this from, the city waits until the property changes hands and then sticks me with this headache. WTF?

@Derek T.Wow, Derek. Those are amazing labor costs for both new construction and retrofit windows. I'm GCing my own projects as well. I'd love to know who you contract to get those rates. PM if you don't want to post. Too late to use on my current project, but would love to try for the next one.

@Eric Li One thing that often happens (not always which is why predictions are so error prone) is that the stock market takes a big tumble during a recession. That usually signifies that the recession started 6-12 months ago and no one noticed until now (then). After that the real estate market follows, but much slower.

The net effect is that the down payment you are sitting on now invested in stocks and mutual funds takes a bigger hit than the reduction in RE values, making it much harder to buy the same property you could have bought today.

There are a lot of assumptions baked into that statement, like that you have a chunk of change in the stock market, or that you even have a sizeable down payment. The point is your model is fairly simplistic and is missing many of the variable that would effect the real outcome.

I'm with @Cara Lonsdale on this one. If you can find what appears to a deal, or at least a reasonable cash flowing opportunity, I would invest. Unless the recession is already here and the stock market crashed, I don't think you or anyone can reasonably predict the future with any accuracy.

Two policies? Interesting. On my duplex I only have one. But it's clear that it's an investment property and not owner-occupied.

Does that mean you are going to have to pay twice as much? Just for comparison, my policy on the duplex is around $1000 annually. It's in E Oakland. What were you paying?

@Account Closed Not sure if this advice is too late. But I got cancelled last year as well. Apparently insurers in general don't want to see a property under construction. It's nothing specific. I received a refund check in the mail after I was cancelled, but no one actually reached out to tell me that I was cancelled. By the time I figured out what happened, the construction was done and I had renters in the place. So I just called up my ins boker, and got another policy going with a different company. That guy I met when he came out. Super friendly. Passed with flying colors.

The lesson I learned is don't let them inspect a vacant property and don't let them inspect a property under construction.

I just closed on a new place and have all contractors on hold until I can get the ins inspector in and out.

My advice would be to finish up the work you've got ASAP. It will take some time before your mortgage company comes calling about lack of insurance. Don't delay as I've had a mortgage company try to force me to buy insurance for a 2 month period in the past. I had a hard time wrapping my head around that one -- insurance for a past period, where nothing happened. Luckily it was as a result of switching insurance companies and I only needed to show the proof of insurance. But you can see the crazy stuff they will try to pull on you.

Best of luck!

Chris, thanks for sharing. When you say "you just happen to work for an approved lender", does that mean you don't need to go through Wells Fargo to qualify for this grant?