All Forum Posts by: Jak Dadi

@John Latkovich, did you find a good pm?

I am wary of jumping on the appreciation bandwagon. However, I am noticing that there is a dearth of housing in South Bay. With a lot of monopoly money created by techs,the inbound cash from overseas buyers, and limited inventory, there seems to be no end to the demand. I guess that is what causes some investors to take higher risk and move away from fundamentals. IMHO.

I dont think there needs to be a set time between the transactions. As long as you are doing the due diligence and are able to buy the next one, you should. We bought our 1st ever property ( a 4 plex) in aug 2010, and then 2 more before End of the year. We got 2 more in 2011 and #5 and #6 in 2012. We were getting a lot of advice from friends and family that we were going too fast and we should focus on buying our primary home first but we were confident that the numbers made sense. As long as we were able to get bank financing, we kept buying. Of course , in hindsight 2 of the purchases were not optimal, but we sold them as soon as we realized that they were not a good fit for us, even though we had to take a small hit. Again, those losses were more than offset by the gain in the rest of the portfolio. Mind you, it still took us a couple of years to figure out a good operating rhythm but we did not slow down the pace. In hindsight we should have continued to purchase in 2013 but were busy with offloading the 2. We just closed on a sfh last month in south bay and rented it out yesterday, and am already pinging my lender to qualify us for the next loan, so we can be ready for our next move once we figure out what it is. A long winded way of saying- continue buying as long as you can afford to and as long as the numbers make sense.

Unfortunately, I would never buy unseen or trust a PM unless I have the ability to visit my properties at least once a quarter or let the PM's think that I may just do that. Maybe I have gotten jaded with recent experiences with long distance investing but this is not an avenue that I will ever explore alone or recommend to anyone. Living in the Bay Area, it is almost impossible to find any good rent to value opportunities anymore, and it is extremely hard to sit on the sidelines and so it is tempting to look at distant properties, and remind myself of all the challenges faced with the last attempt, so I am in the process of educating myself to discover other avenues.

Very very very helpful! Thank you so much! My experience with long distance investing was not good with Stockton ( PM's were bad in addition to lack of knowledge of market and we were able to get out quickly to prevent bleeding) but farming will be a different ballgame. Hence I am nervous about out of state or investing anywhere more than 40-50 miles, which means I could face similar risks with farming.

But there is something luring about walking through your own land, as you said, just need to find the right one. I am going to take some of your tips in doing the research and will provide an update in a bit :-)

Thanks again!

Hi,

After building up to 23 apartments in 3 years and seeing the recent spike in prices in bay area in MFH, I am trying to increase my knowledge in agri as an alternative long term investment, in addition to still finding the needle in the hay stack called a good value in MFH. Has anyone dipped their toes in agri and if yes, would you care to share your experiences. Are you aware of any reading material and valuation modelling techniques?

Thank you

Unfortunately, we did not get any lease from the seller, because it was a short sale transaction...
Brian: you are right about the lease with HA, except this was the previous owner :-(
But when you provide the 3 day notice, doesn't that essentially give them 3 days notice to collect past due rent? My challenge is that the attorney is not going for the full amount but only the tenant portion ($203)..we do not have documentation on either amounts, so because of the implied agreement, shouldn't we go for $600 in the 3 day notice?

Sanjiv,

You are right. that ws a typo..i meant lost section 8 headache...i guess posting at 3 am is not a good idea....i learnt a lesson of investing in non local properties, u r at the mercy of property management firms. don't u need a lease for eviction? the attorney wants to file based on the undocumented 203. My concern is if the tenant comes thru with $203 per mo, i do not want to sign a lease at that rent....

Greetings! i closed on a short sale 4 plex in Stockton in January. All units vacant but for one section 8 tenant who lost her vouchur before close of escrow. Seller had let her stay by collecting her portion of the rent knowing fully well that the property will be out of his hand shortly. We did not get any leases on the tenant. Sure enough tenant does not pay a dime and of course does not qualify to pay full rent herself. So, 3 months on, we have a non paying tenant. In the absence of any documentation, how do we get her out? I offered her cash for keys but no luck. I am told her adult kids have a criminal history. The attorney calls me and indicates that we should give them a 3 day notice and in the absence of any documentation, we should ask them to pay 3 months of their portion of the rent. Of course, we have no portion of what their portion is, except that during one of the conversation, we found out that her portion used to be ~$203. He believes that the tenant pay not be able to come up with 3 months of 203= 609. If she does come through, on May 1st, she will have to come up with May's portion of $203. At that time, we also give her a 30 or 60 day notice on intent to increase the rent to market rate of 600.
So, in short, this will be a long drawn process. Questions
1) Will Section 8 share any historical info on her, prior to me taking over ownership
2) How do I get her out? Anyone else ever dealt with a similar issue? Is this the best approach?

I have a few other section 8 tenants and they are model tenants. But of course, there has to be a bad apple in the basket!!

I have fourplex in San Pablo, CA, where one of the units has recently developed a lot of mold in coat closet, bedroom, living room etc.

1) I am all set to have the sheet rock, flooring, bathroom redone. Should I go with an mold remediation company who is given me an estimate of $6K for just the remediation part, and is estimating another 15k-20k for the rehab, whereas my maintenance man, who has been doing this for 15 years, is planning on basically tearing out the walls, redoing entire bathroom, flooring etc for the same amount, after treating the mold. Of course material cost is separate. I was planning on getting the place tested before he puts it back together. Since I want to continue renting to section 8 tenants, is there a requirement to go the certified mold remediation company route or can i get it done by my maintenance man, and then get a clearance from the testing co.

2) we had a tenant there for 20 years, with no mold issues, he moved out early last year. we started seeing the mold when we had a toilet overflow problem that the new tenant had, a few months ago. Is it possible that that could be a driver for mold. The overflow sat there for a week, since the tenant was out entire week...it went to all the rooms from what i am told....i am trying to see if we have any chance with insurance claim?