All Forum Posts by: Bryan Zuetel

@Nick A., you got some really great advice here.  I'm a California attorney, broker, and investor and grew up in the Pasadena area.  I understand the attraction to it and am not surprised by a 7 unit for that price.  However, have you considered a 2-4 unit in the northern part of Pasadena or Altadena?  They might not be as nice as the Old Pas area or east Pasadena, but you can still find some great deals in that part of Pasadena.  If you're not interested in north Pasadena, I would suggest looking for a palatable area in and around Pasadena, where you can buy a 2-4 unit property, live in one and rent out the others.  

@Tony H., with all due respect to those outside of California, as @Cara Lonsdale noted above, California has weird laws aka very tenant friendly laws.  I am a California real estate attorney, broker, and investor.  I can't comment on your specific case, but can confirm some general information.  The post by @James Rogers appears to be taken from the California Department of Consumer Affairs Landlord Tenant Book, which is a great, free resource available online, which you should google and download.  Note carefully two of the ways to gain entry to the rental unit: "To show the rental unit to prospective tenants, purchasers, or lenders, to provide entry to contractors or workers who are to perform work on the unit" and advance written notice is not required when "The tenant is present and consents to the entry at the time of entry."  Those are probably the two best ways for one to gain access to a property during the tenancy.

@Vani Sood, Certain trust deed holders or crowdfunding platforms may require that you be an accredited investor to invest in their product.

@Nick Rudolph, I see that you're in Long Beach. I'm just down the road from you in Orange County. If you are willing, there are a few areas in Long Beach where you can acquire a duplex or maybe triplex using your current downpayment and an FHA loan. I would look around your current area.

@Darren Fung, welcome to Bigger Pockets.  Yes, Southern California is very expensive.  You may be able to find some potential duplexes or triplexes in which to house hack in and around South Gate, some up and coming areas of Los Angeles (although avoid any rent controlled areas/properties), and some surrounding cities.  If house hacking is your goal, you can make it happen with the right property in the Greater LA area.

@Katrina Diwa, welcome to Bigger Pockets.  I'm a California real estate attorney, broker, and investor based in Orange County.  Feel free to reach out with any general questions.

@Ethan G Stine, I see that you're from Victorville.  I have looked at some Victorville and surrounding cities for flips.  Some of those cities might make sense if you want to do fix and flips.  I would suggest choosing those homes that were built in the 90's and could use a facelift.

@Kayla Shumate, I'm a California real estate attorney, broker, and investor.  I'll give you general information on this issue applicable to California but will not comment or advise on your specific situation.  A lease agreement is a binding contract that has requirements of both parties, landlord and tenant.  Thus, if the tenant moves out of the property before the end of the lease contract, the tenant has breached the contract and is subject to all applicable remedies.  In California, this can include keeping the security deposit and seeking a judgment for the amount of rent between the time that the tenant stops paying rent and the time that the landlord is again able to rent the property to a new tenant using reasonable efforts to rent the property.  Your lease agreement may also dictate the process and remedies for the breach and every lease agreement can be different.  Check out this handbook for more information: http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/index.shtml.

@Anant Garg I'm a California real estate attorney, broker, and investor.  I will provide you some general advice about California, but not your case specifically.  While I respect the comments of those above, please realize that this is California, which has a large number of disclosures required by statute, case law, and contract.  So, any comparisons to other states or how other states do it are frankly inapplicable.  Yes, we Californians are crazy and we know it, but you can't beat 80 degrees in the "dead of winter."

I'm guessing from your post that you purchased an SFR, not a multi-family or condo. STATUTES: California statutes impose certain duties of disclosure in the Transfer Disclosure Statement, through which a seller can disclose any issues with the plumbing or any material defects. CASE LAW: California case law imposes a duty to disclose known material defects and a duty on agent to conduct a reasonable visual inspection of the property and report the findings of their inspection to the buyer. CONTRACT: Probably 95%+ of SFR purchase transactions in California utilize the California Association of Realtors Residential Purchase Agreement (RPA). The RPA imposes certain additional disclosures (in addition to statutory requirements) for a Seller Property Questionnaire or an Exempt Seller Disclosure. Either of these documents would include questions about the condition of the plumbing. Depending on the version, the RPA may have imposed a continuing duty of disclosure on the seller throughout the transaction.

If issues were disclosed to you during the transaction or if your property inspector reported these items to you, then the issues were disclosed or made known to you during the transaction when you could have negotiated a price reduction or credit or cancelled the transaction.  However, if the seller did not disclose these issues or purposely covered up these issues, you may have recourse against the seller.  You can check out this article to which I contributed several quotes for more information: www.realtor.com/advice/buy/sue-false-information-given-sellers/

Short answer, without going to into the legal reasoning behind it, is yes.