All Forum Posts by: Dale Shin

I'm in the Los Angeles area and here we have the "Apartment Owners Association" which is a really terrific organization.  They publish a monthly newsletter where all kinds of businesses advertise.  In there, there is an ad for "apartment supply warehouse" where they stock those things common to rentals, toilets, garbage disposals, stoves, stove parts, etc., etc. that are cheaper than at Home Depot.  

I'm sure your area has some kind of apartment owners association where they can refer you to other places where you can get materials.  

Wow, that looks great!  How much did you have to redo and how long did it take you?

I don't have any experience with section 8 evictions but do with regular evictions.  from my experience with regular evictions, any error in the notice served can get your case thrown out.  I agree with @marcia maynard, hire an attorney experienced with section 8 evictions.  The expense of the attorney will probably save you time and money in the long run.  

In this case I would send a certified letter (return receipt) or FedEx to the person above the regional manager.  In the letter you can state your difficulty in reaching the property manager and list whatever deferred maintenance items the tenant should be taking care of per the lease.  That should get the attention of someone high up to get some heads rolling.

if it doesn't I would send another letter so the same higher up stating the actions you will take that will be billed back (plus any administrative surcharge) to the tenant for not performing per the lease.  

Trash receptacles are somewhat common but are a pain.  I try to stay away from these for a few reasons.  They have to be emptied regularly and should be lined with plastic bags or else spilled sodas, gunky stuff etc will make them smell.  Regardless, they should be cleaned every so often.  That means hiring someone to do this work on top of the cost of the receptacles.  In my experience, receptacles get vandazlied and stolen.  

What might be better is to get a sweeping service if you don't have it already.  If you do have sweeping, depending on what time of the day they come, maybe they can be asked to come just before sun up to clear away trash left the night before.  This would also be a CAM cost.

Sounds like this is a NNN property with the tenant(s) paying CAM. Hopefully the owners (or managers) have been doing annual CAM reconciliations and if that's the case, then the reconciliation should show the actual expenses for the previous year in a one-page statement.

Just in case you didn't know, NNN leases should have a provision to allow the owner to reconcile the actual CAM expenses versus the estimated one tenants have been paying. If the actual expenses paid that year turn out to be more than what the tenants have been paying, then the tenants have to pay the difference. Vice versa, the landlord should credit each tenant if the estimate is more than actual.

The reconciliation should be very accurate as the lease should also allow for the tenant the right to audit landlord's records including seeing copies of actual invoices paid.  I would say that if you can get your hands on past 2-3 years of reconciliaton statements, the statements alone should give you a good idea of actual expenses.

As a manager of net retail spaces, I was told by an attorney that I do not want to hold on to any keys for liability reasons.  If something should go missing in a tenant's space and there was no forcible entry, the tenant might look to me as a suspect.  

Some (newbie) tenants have also asked me to do favors for them, such as let in the phone guy or other things.  Since I don't have the keys, I cannot help them and just as well since I will not be able to do that for all the tenants I managed.

Being a net lease also, it's up to the tenant to take care of most everything in their unit, including getting themselves back in the unit if they lock themselves out.  They'll just have to call a locksmith to jimmy the lock.

To me the personal guarantee means you believe in it and stand behind it 100%.  If you don't feel it's a good deal, then you should just walk away.  

But with the info you gave, hopefully it truly is the cash flow positive property it sounds like it is and a decent value add project as well.  If you buy, please be sure to post the outcome!

I managed a neighborhood retail center where a credit union moved out.  They had an ATM installed on one wall of windows and a special room built in the space to house this equipment.  They might have had a safe that could be transported but no vault or security deposit boxes were built out.  Other than that, the rest of the space was built out as an office.  

The tenant took out the ATM and restored the window and ceiling to original condition after some persistent reminding to their increasingly grumpy lease end administrator guy.  They also removed any security system as well.  

Hopefully the place doesn't have a big old vault or other heavy duty build out special to banks.  

Hi Matt, check out this link to the AIR NNN lease for retail (they have other forms for other property types as well):

http://www.airea.com/DOWNLOAD/PDF/FORMS/SAMPLES/St...).pdf

This is the "standard" form used in the Los Angeles area for retail tenants.

You should read the entire thing of course, but for the NNN provisions, check out sections 2.7-2.12 to understand the "common area" then read section 4.2 to understand the NNN charges on top of rent, then section 7 to understand the tenant's maintenance obligations.

If you're a landlord, this is a great lease.  If you're a tenant, not so good.