All Forum Posts by: Barry Wang

I am in the process of talking to some developers in the Austin area about buying new construction (BROHN HOMES).

Essentially, the term allows both buyer and seller to terminate the contract prior to closing for a fairly small amount of fee (a couple of thousands).  Is this common?   Would the seller just terminate if the price goes up during the construction? 

Thanks for all the feedbacks. Couple of things to clarify:

1: The people complained are not my tenants. They are neighbors who lived couple of buildings away. I have had conversation with my tenant each time I received complaints and they have always responded politely. At end of day, it is probably just different expectation people have when they live in a crowded city like SF. (People live in the buildings on both side of mine never complained)

2: Not renew is not an option in San Francisco. It is not up to the landlord.

My original question is mostly about what are some tools I have that I can enforce certain rules, but sounds like there is not really an option there other than keep having open conversation. 

Don't disagree as I have been in SF for the last 10 years and fully aware of the risk, but what I am doing is more house hacking.  

I live in a nice neighborhood and charge high rent, so the number works for me and I also don't intend to keep them as rental forever, most likely will renovate and sell sometime in the future.
Owning pure rental properties especially ones targeted at lower-income tenants will just stress me out, not worth it, even though I know people who had done really well on the east coast follow that playbook...

  

Thanks all. That is the problem, they didn't really break any local ordinance. And unfortunately we are in San Francisco, so we can't just say we are not going to continue the lease (they are on month to month now)

For any new lease, we already add a clause that says, you can't drink alcohols in backyard and I think I can also add clause says , you cannot have guests over in backyard, that would give me some "teeth" in the future right?

In my three units, I have one group of tenants that in their early twenties and like to use the backyard for parties (BBQ, Beer Pong) with 10 plus people. We have a couple of senior neighbors who would always complain about this. I feel bad about them disturbing the neighbors but at the same time, they are actually great tenants, easy to communicate, take care the property and always pay rent on time.

But now, we will be moving into one of units ourself and likely we will be annoyed by this type of activities as well.

There is nothing on the current lease that I can use to ask them not to have parties or limit their use of backyard.

What are my options? Can I set a building rule like you need to send a notice to use the backyard if you will have guests over?

Ya Agree. I called our insurance agent and he confirmed it will be covered by landlord/personal liabilities.   I think it is a small risk I am cool taking.  Thanks everyone.

I have a 3 units in Bay area. Tenants from one of the unit volunteered to lay fake grass in the backyard (500 sqft+) as long we cover all the materials.  I am cool paying for all materials, but worry about the liability if there were accidents. My tenants are early 20 young guys and had experience doing yard work before actually. 

What are my options?  I am thinking have them pay for everything and I simply reimburse them all material costs.

Do I get them sign a wavier or something? I don't know if there is any similarities, but if someone fell off when they try to paint their own room, I guess I am not liable, but this is in shared area.

I do have landlord liability in my insurance policy. 

Thanks!