All Forum Posts by: Brian Hughes

It is pretty standard/common when an occupied rental property (basically required if it is multifamily) that interior inspections won't happen until after a signed PSA.   If this is a single family house that would be less common but duplex and up its most of the time.   That's specifically to avoid disturbing tenants with repeated showings from looky-loos.

That said,  most leases do have language around tenant providing access for showing the building for sale, etc.   However given COVID circumstances is certainly reasonable to consider alternate options previously suggested like the interior tour video (either pre-recorded or real time via skype/zoom chat or something)

Even if your landlord won't negotiate you can try approaching the listing RE agent directly to let the know your concerns and propose creating the tour video.

/Most/ of the tenant advocacy and over-the-top protection ordinances are in Seattle ; there is activity and substantial additional ordinances s well as cities of Burien, Federal Way, Tacoma,  Everett, and Bellingham that I am aware of ; could be more.   However if Seattle is a "10" on the relative scale of worse-ness then the next worst is maybe a "5".   For example burien passed an inspection program (annoying to those of us who give a dang, but manageable and doesn't impinge on tenant screening, setting rents, etc) and they have some rules around move-in fees and relocation,  but they haven't passed any rules blocking out important screening criteria or preventing you from controlling who moves into your property)   In total scale of additional rules at the municipal level Tacoma has the most after Seattle,  but their leadership and rules are still sufficiently more balanced that its an area worth looking at  (if there are still any good deals to be had) 

There is activity by tenant advocates on the statewide scale to enact some of the same sorts of rules seattle has (just cause, restricted screening criteria, severe limits on ability to evict, collect up front fees, and control occupancy),  and what is probably going to become an annual attempt to enact statewide rent control until it happens.  I suspect we will eventually get it similar to oregon's or california's.   Not as severe as new york or san francisco ;  and maybe possible to work within as long as you didn't recently buy a below-market performing building for market-rate prices with the expectation of large rent increases.

I'd focus on secondary and tertiary cities (my top 3 - renton, burien, tukwila; though there are many more I would also consider)  or as previously suggested,  east of the cascades.   Even if additional regulations are passed statewide, the local government leadership should continue to be a bit more balanced.

FWIW I spent a couple days in Spokane last week -  I cumulatively walked or biked about 40 miles around various neighborhoods.  Spokane isn't perfect but its a nice town and worth looking at...

You can't refuse to renew the tenant either owing to same statewide emergency orders.     One option would be to offer a short term lease renewal,  say 3 months,  in hopes that the orders will be lifted by the time that renewal comes up,  and you will finally have some leverage to force the tenant to talk to you about repayment.     If they refuse to sign,  they are now a holdover tenant both not paying rent and refusing to sign a new rental agreement;  The only risk there is if you do accept ANY rent when they are in holdover you have agreed to convert the tenancy to month to month I believe.    I would not offer or allow this tenant to convert to month to month.    So if you offer the short renewal and they don't agree to sign, don't accept any rent until they do.

In any case,  since its likely this tenant is taking advantage of the situation  its probably time to talk to an attorney or eviction service and craft a strategy.  While you cannot do anything to enforce the situation with the tenant,  nothing is stopping you from formulating your strategy so you can hit the ground running.   While you can't threaten eviction directly,  you might also try to find a sideways way of letting the tenant 'discover' you are talking with attorneys.  Maybe call your attorney from your car in front of the property when you know they might be listening or something,  fumble around in your pockets and drop the business card for the eviction service,  etc.   It might let them know you are getting more serious about things,  though its pretty likely the way this ends is that sometime after these rules lift they will disappear in the night and leave you a mess to clean up along with the unpaid debt.

http://web.rhawa.org/External/...   see section on tacoma occupancy code.

If you have an offer right now,   you should not have to tie up your property in order for that buyer to get you the 'actual' price.   If you have not signed any contracts,  you are not beholden to anybody.   It is in your best interest to get competing bids.   It could easily be 100's of thousands in difference in price.   So do it by hiring an agent or you own legwork,  as long as you do it :)

if your home is in good shape, has good street appeal and good amenities, is not an outlier in its location (last house on a block of apartments, last house on a commercial strip, busy street etc) and would appeal to non-investor non-developer buyers your best bet is to list the home on MLS and get as much visibility as possible. You can of course do that by hiring any respectable RE agent/brokerage, just make sure they don't want to do a 'pocket' (non MLS) listing which sometimes happens with redevelopment and other investor-focused properties.

If your home is likely to appeal mostly to developers (as was the case for my old duplex due its zoning and other circumstances)  then your best bet is to solicit them.   You can still of course hire an agent.   That will be more likely to guarantee the best sale price,  but of course you will pay a sellers commission.  If you go that route find an RE agency that specializes in commercial/redevelopment/investment properties,  there are many.   This is a 'safe' way to go if you are at all uncomfortable with the prospect of doing more legwork yourself.   You should also probably go this way if you are at all unsure/not confident of the value of your home.   

WRT "and/or assigns" an assignment just means that the original party who signed the contract with you to buy your home is giving those rights to a different party who would then continue the process.   In theory that has no impact on you as the seller,  but in practice it does.   First,  the party you originally determined to be legitimate/reliable/serious etc is no longer the buyer and you now have a strange party buying your home,  and 2)  assignments are usually done for a fee/price.    That fee would be payed by the the assignee (new buyer).    Since the ultimate buyer has a certain budget and will value your property at X,   they don't care whether they pay the owner X or split it between the owner and assignor (original buyer).  Basically what it means is if fees are paid to do the assignment,  you as seller ultimately get a lower offer "no fee" offer.   Unlike a RE comission where you know what this amount is and it is fairly standardized,   with assignments there are no rules/conventions.   It is all about the negotiation between assignor and assignee.  You as seller do not have any right to know the amount or be involved in the process.    If the assignor gets your property under contract below market,  they will use that to try and get a larger assignment fee typically,   making up the difference between the low sale price and the market price as profit for them.

Earnest Money (EM):    This is 'deposit money' used to guarantee the buyer will follow through.   The longer a property stays under contract but not yet sold,  the greater the risk that things will happen so the larger the earnest money should be  See exhibit 1:  COVID-19.    A "normal" EM for a normal retail residential transaction is around 1-2% of sale price.   Those transactions also usually are timed to close in around 30 days.   Since developers and middlemen both want longer closing times for reasons previously stated,  they will offer larger EM's in exchange.  Most of them I talked to wanted 6 months to a year closing and offered about 4% and up on the EM.   The EM I agreed to was about ~8% of sale price (50K) for 8 months to closing.   That worked for me since I needed the time to work on getting my already-purchased replacement home habitable and move stuff gradually.    Your situation may be different.   There are no regulations or rules around EM;   it is completely subject to negotiation.   If you are directly negotiating it please insist on it being nonrefundable,  and for it to be a significant sum proportional to the length of the contract.    Some of the money can typically be released to you before closing,  and that is a good thing to ask for  (harder to claw back for buyer if they decide to be underhanded about it)  but best to not touch it til sale completed lest they try.   If you can't qualify to buy a new home without funds (including an EM) from the sale of your current one,  It is probably risky to agree to a long closing time,  especially now that the economy has been seriously dented by COVID.   The risks of things being way worse or way different in 6 months is much greater right now.

I can give you the contact info for the attorney I worked with,  PM me.   He did a decent job and charged me far less than what a normal RE commission would have been on the sale.   If you do not want to hire a RE agent to represent you,  you MUST hire an attorney.   Otherwise you are putting yourself and your interests at significant risk.  Buying/Selling RE is complex.   I'm no expert but I know that.   Some buyers knowing you aren't represented will likely take advantage of the situation maybe not to offer you less money,  but to change terms to put more risks of the transaction onto you.   Don't go there.   Mic Drop.

If your neighborhood is changing,   everybody in the neighborhood is going to have to deal with that.   In my old 'hood I lived there for 10 years;   the last 3-4 years there were constantly active townhouse projects at various locations within 1 block of my house.   By the time I chose to sell I had townhome projects next door, and kitty corner across the alley,  and a developer owned the property directly across the alley too.   Interestingly the neighbors who were most upset with me for selling weren't the ones in remaining neighbor houses,  they were the townhouse residents next door.   They were upset at the thought of a year of construction and losing the view of greenspace/gardens on my lot.   I just reminded them that I had gone through the same thing,  and they had chosen to buy into higher density living in a redeveloping neighborhood.   Most of them I left on good terms with but one neighbor went from friendly to adversarial practically overnight.   They had other stressors in their life though and were in part taking it out on me,  off topic for here.  By then it was only weeks to my closing date so it didn't really matter though.

Good luck. 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/770/topics/763319-strategies-for-selling-my-lr1-lot-for-development

washington state just extended moratorium to August 1 as well.

Yeah,   I've heard that before too.   What I may do in a bid to try and protect the triplex from redevelopment would be sell off the excess land or do the developer partnership approach,  but sell off instead of keeping the finished properties,  and once that process is complete,  sell the triplex for its value as a small investment property.

In any case,  its good to have options I suppose.  Thanks for your thoughts.

@David Edwards   I am aware of the RSL rules in seattle regarding ADUs - in fact my other investment property - a triplex in seattle - is in an RSL upzoned area and on a large enough lot (8700sf) to accomodate 4 RSL structures so your hypothetical example is pretty much exactly my situation.   The existing triplex is also situated forward far enough on the lot to allow subdivision of at least one maybe 2 RSL lots while preserving that structure,  which is in good condition owing to the last 14 years of my elbow grease.

I would be more interested in pursuing some options around this myself except for my lack of enthusiasm for increasing my exposure to seattle rental regulations and high cost of construction/permitting.