All Forum Posts by: Emy Bernardo

Yes, La Jolla falls under the jurisdiction of the City of San Diego. 

If I lived nearby, I would stain/seal it myself.  It wouldn't cost you much time or money to do the work yourself and well worth it. 

I would plan for the worst. What is the exit strategy if there is a slowdown? Personally, I wouldn't invest in any property for a STR if I couldn't also rent as a long term rental and have cash flow or, at minimum, cover expenses during the off season. I think that area is over saturated, you really need to have something spectacular to stand out. There is a military base in Thousand Palms nearby, maybe look for something that could serve as off base long term rental if the STR slows down.

Just curious, where is the property located and how did you decide that STR is the highest and best use for it?

I would build the ADU - it's easy to manage and will give you so many options down the road. For example, maybe you move into the ADU one day and rent out the main house, or rent both out and have enough cash flow to cover your mortgage or rent somewhere else. Or, maybe one day you will need to move your aging parent into it or your college age kid. There are many pros to having the ADU aside from the cash flow!

That said, you might be stuck paying off the HELOC a while... The cool thing about a HELOC is as soon as you pay the money back, you have it available to use again. So, if you put all your rent from the ADU towards paying it down in the first year or two, you will have those funds to redeploy to your next investment. Not sure if there are companies that would finance your ADU build? Maybe you could use the Heloc for a portion of the ADU build and keep some of the money to use for a down payment on another property?

@Michael Walker  - very nice! We are drawing up plans to do the same at our property in CDA, ID. (600 SF
ADU on top of garage/shop). Do you have a photo of the outside that you can share?

I agree with @Dan H.  - regular inspections and a good PM are key.  Allows you address issues that the tenant may not have reported before they grow into something that is going result in a larger expense.  We learned this the hard way.  Made an in person visit to a duplex in San Antonio that we were getting ready to sell and low and behold, the bathroom floor was rotted out due to a leaky toilet the tenant never reported and the other unit was running a dog breeding business.  Ugh, we learned our lesson with crappy property managers that never inspected the property!

Option 3.  I wouldn't sell, the rental market is strong, you will not have any issue renting once you get the tenant out and get the place fixed up.    

Thanks all for the great advice. I hadn't considered the sharing of the fixed fees, so that is a good point to mention if anyone complains. 

Hi all - we have an ADU in our single family home and have been including the cost of utilities in the ADU rent. We recently started charging our tenants a $100 flat rate to help cover some of our soaring utility costs here in San Diego. We are moving out of state in a few months and plan to rent out the house and keep our same tenants in the ADU. What is the best way to split the costs of the bills between tenants? The main house is about 1100 SF and the ADU is 500 SF. The main house has 3 bed/1.5 baths, washer/dryer. The ADU has a stackable washer dryer, 1 bath. Both have only one gas wall heating unit. 2 tenants in the ADU and not sure how many we will have in the main house. I am hesitant to charge a flat rate because it doesn't incentivize people to be mindful of energy use. Maybe 1/3 to ADU and 2/3 to main house? Or should we go by # of tenants per unit? Thanks for any suggestions!