All Forum Posts by: Bruce Runn

@Bill B.

I'm saying both St Paul and Minneapolis did not pass a rent control charter amendment that limits rent increases to 3% as you posted.  Only St Paul did

@Bill B.

St. Paul is the only city that passed a predetermined set of rules limiting rent increases to 3%, no vacancy decontrol, and no exemptions for new construction.  

Minneapolis passed a charter amendment to allow the city council to analyze and put something together if they determine they should act.  Those are two very different things.

@Randy Bloch- The people that wrote the proposal put May 1st but obviously didn't understand how the rules/voting work on a charter change.  A referendum like this goes in effect once the vote is confirmed.  Just points to how poorly this was orchestrated.

@Randy Bloch

Implementation is as of the date it passed.  St Paul city council hasn't yet figured out what it all means and how they are going to pay for the staff to monitor and enforce this.  In Oakland, they had to add 24 full time staff for something similar.  That's about $2.0 million/year.  Don't think anyone understands the government bureaucracy involved in creating a new system from scratch.  Can you imagine the data base involved in setting and tracking every apartment's rent?  That's 70,000 licenses in St Paul.  I think you will begin to see a plethora of new "fees" added to rents.

@Tyler Forsythe

I know someone that just completed a duplex to triplex conversion and it worked out very well.    It's a slow but sure kind of forced appreciation.  He put about $120,000 into it and his appraisal went up $175,000 from his purchase price and he's getting $2,000/month for the extra unit so cash flow went up dramatically

I should add they are 32 and 36 years old now which makes it even makes it better.   

Best story I can share is of a couple I taught in 2013 how to buy 2-4 unit multi family properties and how to house hack. They started with $10,000 and bought 1 property a year for the past 7 years, moving into the first couple properties as owner occupied, then leverage lower down payments. Everything cash flowed from the beginning and they opened up LOC/HELOC's against the earlier ones to buy the later ones. I'm guessing they now have at least $800K of equity. Very smart and hard working couple.

@Tanner Crawley

The difference is, I advocate is cash flow and appreciation.  It's not an either/or which is what you're using as an example.  What's riskier-negative cash flow counting on  healthy appreciation or cash flow and appreciation?  Trust me, I don't have a gross misunderstanding of current market fundamentals-LOL.  More than not, I see younger investors who have never seen a dip/trouble who buy into a simplistic strategy because it worked in the past and continues to work until it doesn't and they don't  see the signs/trends of what's happening.

Highly recommend a reverse 1031 which I prefer so there is never a time crunch to complete a deal

@Jay Hinrichs

Running your investments as a business is essential- your point of having sufficient cash reserves, cash flow and being willing to make it through good and bad is crucial.  If people only have experience the market when it’s going up, they don’t know anything else…